Escondido Arts Center Another Step Closer to Reality

What was a dream 10 years ago took one more step toward becoming reality Wednesday night when the Board of Trustees for the proposed Escondido Center for the Arts voted unanimously to recommend to the City Council to accept bids for the center.

The bids, which came in $4 million below the project’s $52.4-million estimate, were unsealed earlier this month.

The council is expected to make the final decision as to whether to go with the project in its entirety or to build the project in separate phases.

The $73.4-million project had drawn criticism from some city council members because of its forecasted $1.5-million annual operating deficit.

Councilwoman Carla De Dominicis, who also sits on the center’s Board of Trustees, had previously expressed concerns over the operating deficit but voted with the rest of the trustees in going ahead with the project after the board had voted to assure the City Council that their fund-raising efforts would accommodate for at least two-thirds of the operating deficit.

“If the board believes it will do that, then I will believe in the board,” De Dominicis said after the meeting.

The City Council is slated to take up the issue at their June 5 meeting. Ground breaking for the center is scheduled for June 22.

The project, scheduled to be completed in the fall of 1993, includes a 1,500-seat lyric theater, a 400-seat community theater, an 800-person-capacity conference center and a visual arts center with a gallery, library and workshop space.