Palmdale Drops Plans for Costly Center--Again

In the latest twist to an 8-year-saga, city officials in Palmdale have scrapped plans to build a costly new performing arts center and instead opted again to renovate an old auditorium.

Palmdale officials blamed tight finances and higher-than-budgeted costs for the demise of the planned 400-seat theater, spurring the City Council’s 5-0 decision Friday to pursue the cheaper plan.

It was the city’s fifth such shift on the two options since 1984.

“The reason we’re not in a theater today is because we kept changing our target, our focus,” said Mayor Jim Ledford, who warned that the city could not afford to build the new facility. Ledford had long favored renovating the old auditorium in the city’s downtown area.

By a 4-0 vote, with Councilman Joe Davies abstaining, the council rejected all construction bids for its prior plan to build a 400-seat, 19,000-square-foot performing arts center on 5.7 acres of vacant, donated land east of the Antelope Valley Freeway south of Palmdale Boulevard.

The low bid on the project by C.W. Driver and Associates of Los Angeles was $5.52 million. But city officials estimated related costswould have brought the total to $7.1 million, well over the city’s $4.7 million budget.

The focus now shifts again to the Maryott Auditorium, a 40-year-old former school building on 10th Street East just east of City Hall. The city’s earlier concept there also called for creating a 400-seat facility, although smaller at 17,400 square feet and far less ornate.

City officials Friday estimated that the entire project could be done for $4 million to $5 million. However, Ledford, with apparent agreement from his colleagues, told city officials he wanted an even sparer project that would not require all the money the city had set aside.

The council Friday did not spell out cost, size or seating parameters for the Maryott project in its latest incarnation. The council told City Administrator Bob Toone to bring back a proposal after meeting with city public works officials and theater activists.