Latino Museum Backers in Talks With Lawry’s Center

It has been Frank Cruz’s fervent dream to find a home for the nascent Latino Museum of History, Art and Culture. Now Cruz and the museum board have found a site they call “an ideal setting”--Lawry’s California Center--but they still have to raise $30 million to purchase and renovate the landmark center.

The museum’s board entered into negotiations to purchase the 17-acre Lawry’s facility, northeast of downtown Los Angeles, after an 11-member site selection committee chose the site from about 15 to 20 locations, said Cruz, president and executive director of the museum.

The California Center, which was opened to the public in 1960, was patterned after a Mexican hacienda and includes restaurants, offices, shops and 300,000 square feet of building space. Lawry’s Foods Inc. has ended manufacturing of its sauces and seasonings there and put the facility on the market in April with a price tag of $18.5 million, said Rob Fuelling of Grubb and Ellis Realty.

Fuelling said there are several prospective buyers and that the museum committee had made an offer in July that was rejected. The real estate agent said that offer was “substantially below the asking price.”

But Fuelling said that if the museum makes an acceptable bid the property could go to them.

Cruz envisions a complete cultural center at the site, offering a permanent art collection with works from the pre-Columbian era to contemporary Chicano art, along with temporary art exhibits, performing arts programs, workshops in music, cooking, crafts and folklore and a restaurant and gift shop.

Cruz, a former KNBC television reporter and general manager of KVEA-TV, hopes the museum will become the United States’ major repository of Latino culture.

“We would be the first in the United States to have a permanent home of this kind for art in a total cultural setting,” Cruz said. “It will be truly more than just a museum at that location. It will be a cultural center in the broadest sense of the word.”

The stated mission of the Latino museum, which was founded in 1989 with $300,000 seed money approved by the state Legislature, is “to celebrate the heritage of Latinos and to promote the continuing development of Latino artistic and cultural expression in America.”

“Lawry’s is the perfect location that will help us fulfill the goals, the dreams and the mission of the museum,” said Antonia Hernandez, the museum’s board chairwoman and president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

“The type of architecture is very inviting and warm, appealing to both Hispanics and non-Hispanics,” Cruz said. “It’s not an intimidating kind of complex. It has a beautiful garden that invites you to stroll around and look.

“Our goals and dreams at the museum would be to have a mixture of different kinds of performing arts and classes. I long for the day when we can bring in families from the youngest up to 80 years old who will make it a whole day there. They can attend education classes, stopping for lunch at the restaurant, and then tour the collections.”

Cruz and Hernandez announced the start of a $30-million fund drive. The money raised would go toward covering the costs of buying the site, renovating it and getting the museum off the ground, Cruz said.

“That ($30 million) would include all the start-up costs of running a museum: hiring staff, paying museum consultants, bringing in exhibits, hiring landscape architects,” Cruz said. “We have already touched base with some major donors who have indicated a tremendous interest in wanting to help us acquire the site.” He declined to identify the potential donors.

“If we could consummate a deal and raise the money, we could be there by mid-1992,” Cruz said.

Among the museum’s supporters are Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, City Council members Richard Alatorre and Mike Hernandez and state Sen. Charles M. Calderon (D-Whittier).

Lawry’s California Center is located off San Fernando Road, northeast of Dodger Stadium.