Panel Urges L.A. to Buy Theatre Center

A Community Redevelopment Agency committee recommended Monday that the city purchasethe Los Angeles Theatre Center “in the most cost-efficient manner.”

The city agency has spent more than $20 million constructing and operating the downtown facility at 514 S. Spring St. and has an option to buy it from the private investment trust that holds the title.

The agency’s board will meet Thursday to consider the committee report, which also advocated that the board allot money for the theater’s next property tax payment, due Monday, and its continuing facility operating expenses through January.

Notably missing from the board’s recommendations was any mention of a $388,031 bond payment on the building, due Dec. 15. The agency previously has made the bond payments for the facility’s owners. The City Council recently approved the Dec. 15 payment, but the agency’s board decided to withhold the money until hearing a report on the theater center’s future from a commission appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley.

That commission’s conclusions have not yet been officially released, but they reportedly propose that the city spend $4.6 million to retire the bonds and acquire the building.

If the bonds go into default because of failure to make the Dec. 15 payment, the city would “absolutely” be in a better bargaining position in its bid to buy the building, said agency chairman Jim Wood, who also heads the agency’s theater center committee.