Commission Urges City Acquisition of L.A. Theatre Center

One city agency would buy and a second would administer the historic downtown property housing the Los Angeles Theatre Center, creating one of just a half-dozen major municipally owned theater complexes in the country, under a proposal by a special study commission appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley.

The commission’s report, which has been kept under wraps for more than six weeks since it was delivered to Bradley’s office, proposes that the Community Redevelopment Agency spend about $4.5 million to buy the LATC property on Spring Street between 4th and 5th streets. It also proposes annual city operating subsidies of between $150,000 and $2 million.

According to the proposal, details of which were confirmed by The Times on Monday, the existing LATC producing organization would remain as the premier tenant, but other companies would mount plays in the 5-year-old complex as well.

Under a complicated contractual arrangement, a private real estate investment trust owns the LATC building, but the CRA holds an option to buy it.

When the report was presented to Bradley last month, commission members said privately they hoped the document would quickly be made public. But sources close to the matter confirmed recently that the report was bottled up with the city administrative officer, ostensibly undergoing financial review.

The sources said, however, that the delay apparently grew out of concern for political fallout. The commission--whose director is New York theater consultant William Wingate--proposes creation of potentially costly new city theater program just as the City Council is grappling with a range of budget constraints and proposals to slash spending.

Bradley’s office had declined to comment on the LATC situation for several weeks. Late Monday, however, a Bradley spokesman released a statement acknowledging that the commission report “presents a plan to preserve theater on Spring Street” and to “secure the (LATC) as the major tenant of the building.”

The statement said the proposal is now the subject of negotiations involving the LATC, the CRA, the city Cultural Affairs Department, City Councilman Richard Alatorre and the mayor’s office.

“The report will be released to the public when the results of the current negotiations are complete,” the statement said. “It is premature to discuss the terms of the negotiations at this point. The report provides a basis for negotiating a long-term plan to guarantee the theater center’s existence.”

After the complex--a converted bank building and a new structure housing the center’s four active stages--is purchased by the CRA, the Cultural Affairs Department would take over as administrator of the complex. With city ownership would come the subsidy package under which the Cultural Affairs Department would finance maintenance and some other non-artistic operating costs.

LATC officials have maintained for several months that they can raise enough money through ticket sales and contributions to continue the center’s production schedule. But they cannot meet the costs of building maintenance and security, officials said.

The proposal by the commission, appointed by Bradley last May and chaired by Steven D. Lavine, president of CalArts, and Jerry Yoshitomi, director of the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, presents a range of ongoing city subsidy levels--from a low of $150,000 a year to a high of $2 million a year.

The theater center has a 1990 operating budget of $7.5 million. When it opened in 1985, the facility was billed as the centerpiece of a broad CRA-backed Spring Street redevelopment program. But the CRA program lagged and its second anchor, the nearby Ronald Reagan State Office Building, did not open until last month, more than three years late.

The commission was established in the wake of continuing subsidy requirements for the LATC, which has received $20.6 million in CRA money since 1985.

The City Council recently approved $998,000 to see the theater through the end of its current season in January, but only after overcoming objections from a council faction led by Zev Yaroslavsky.