Escondido Council OKs Civic, Cultural Complex : Public Facilities: Initial contracts are for $46.5 million toward total cost of $73.4 million.

Escondido’s City Council went beyond the point of no return Wednesday night in voting approval of more than $46.5 million in construction contracts for a massive civic and cultural complex that when finished will cost $73.4 million.

Jack Anderson, deputy city manager, said the action to build the entire complex now instead of phasing it over the next two years was taken because contractors’ low bids came in $5.9 million below the city’s estimates because of the slowdown in the building industry.

The council voted 4-1 to proceed with the $73.4-million municipal project, to be built next to the new City Hall. Councilman Kris Murphy opposed the measure because he felt the council should limit the city’s financial role in the project.

The vote comes one week after the center’s board of trustees voted unanimously to go ahead with building all four parts of the complex--a 1,500-seat lyric theater, 400-seat community theater, 800-capacity meeting center and visual arts center replete with galleries and workshops.

Groundbreaking is scheduled June 22, with completion expected in November, 1993.

Initially, only the large theater--a regional “drawing card” expected to bring in the most revenues--and parking facilities were in the first phase of the project, Anderson said, but the bargain bid prices were too low for the city to pass up.

The entire complex will have about 200,000 square feet devoted mainly to cultural activities and will be in a super-block next to Grape Day Park and the 3-year-old Escondido City Hall at Broadway and Valley Parkway.

Although construction costs will be $46.5 million, the total cost of the center will be $73.4 million when other expenses are added. Those include land acquisition, financing, furnishings and supervision.

Doubt over the center’s ability to raise enough funds to make up an expected $1.5 million annual operating deficit has been the primary stumbling block to the center being built all at once.

The city of Escondido has pledged to underwrite one-third of the operating deficit, and the center’s board of trustees is responsible for raising the rest. Councilman Murphy expressed concern about the success of a regionwide fund-raising effort to produce the needed revenue. He questioned whether the cultural complex deficits would drain funds from the city’s other needs.

City Councilwoman Carla DeDominicis, who also sits on the center’s board, had been one of the primary skeptics about the center’s fund-raising ability but voted with the majority after receiving assurances from the board that the city will only be responsible for $500,000 in operating costs.