OXNARD : Arts Center Plans for Park Unveiled

County parks officials have unveiled plans for a 2,500-seat amphitheater in College Park in Oxnard designed as a performing arts hub for the entire county.

The $1.6-million outdoor theater would be the first major improvement to the 75-acre park, which remains undeveloped except for a seven-acre picnic area.

“It’s set up to draw some notable entertainment,” said Ron Blakemore, the recreation department’s manager of planning and development. “It will handle music concerts, theater, drama and dance performances.”

The county’s only existing amphitheater, the Foster Bowl, has deteriorated so badly that it is almost unusable, Blakemore said. That theater, built in the 1920s between Ventura and Casitas Springs, holds fewer than 1,000 people and will require at least $100,000 for renovation.

Future improvements at the park are expected to include ball fields and roads, sprucing up the park’s five-acre lake and construction of a waterfront restaurant and commercial buildings.

Supervisor John K. Flynn said the county has gotten about $700,000 in state bond money and other grants for the theater project. Blakemore said his office will seek additional federal and state grants to cover the remaining $900,000 cost.

Oxnard College and Channel Islands High School are both near the park at Channel Islands Boulevard and Rose Avenue and are expected to use the amphitheater. Construction is scheduled to be completed by July, 1991.