Inner City Center Leaving Home : Stage: Earthquake renovation and security fears are cited. The group is seeking temporary space near its Ivar Theatre in Hollywood.

The Inner City Cultural Center is moving its activities out of its 22-year home in a riot-scarred neighborhood near Pico Boulevard and Vermont Avenue and seeking temporary quarters in Hollywood.

But the organization still owns buildings and property at its old site, at 1308 New Hampshire Ave., and will return there eventually, said C. Bernard Jackson, the group’s executive director and co-founder.

“Our dream is to completely rehabilitate the area,” Jackson said. He hopes to put together a financial package that would pay for demolition of the current structure and the building of a new cultural/residential/commercial center on the same site.

Jackson said the old building, which dates from 1925, would face expensive and mandatory earthquake renovation to remain in use. “We’ve been under citation for a couple of years now,” he said, but earlier this year he hoped to extend his use of the building through September.

However, the riots at the end of April changed his mind. Though the Inner City facility was not damaged, many of its neighbors were. Jackson feared that security concerns would dampen attendance at the major summer event scheduled for the center, the group’s annual Talentfest.

During the Talentfest, hundreds of actors, playwrights, singers, composers, comics and others are given a chance to showcase their talent for Hollywood executives. Jackson believes the Hollywood emissaries would be likelier to attend the event in Hollywood.

Inner City owns the Ivar Theatre in Hollywood, but Jackson said the Talentfest requires three sub-100-seat theaters rather than the 250-seat Ivar, which he prefers to reserve for long-running, rent-paying productions. So he’s currently looking for someone who will donate theater space near the Ivar for the Talentfest, which is scheduled from late July through late September.

He’s also searching for 3,500 square feet of donated office space in the Ivar neighborhood, which he said Inner City would use for six months--until office space is created at the Ivar itself.

Inner City’s birth, in 1965, was facilitated by fund raising that took place in reaction to the Watts riots of that year. The organization was housed on Washington Boulevard for five years before moving to its current home in 1970.

The Pico-New Hampshire neighborhood “was a much safer area than it was perceived as being, in the past,” said Jackson. “But now I can’t say we won’t have any further outbreaks.

“In 1965, there was still a lot of hope. Now, there’s a much more cynical sense of despair.”

However, “we’re not giving (the site) up by any means,” emphasized Jackson. “We will reopen there.”