BUENA PARK : City, School May Share Arts Center

The city could soon be getting a permanent home for its performing and visual arts programs.

The city and Buena Park School District are studying whether the two could cooperate in building a single structure that would be a cultural arts center for the community by night and a multipurpose building for students at Buena Park Junior High School by day.

Officials say they should know the answer in January.

“It’s going to give a home to all the arts--not just the performing arts, but the visual arts as well,” Councilman Donald L. Bone. said.

The City Council last spring approved spending $20,000 to hire a consultant to determine if a dual-use building could be built on the junior high school campus. The school district was already working on a master plan to renovate the junior high school, and it included creating a multipurpose building, Supt. Jack Townsend said.

Townsend said the school district, before moving forward, asked the city if it wanted to investigate the idea of sharing the 10,000-square-foot building.

“We felt . . . we needed to explore the possibility,” Townsend said. “Why build two buildings if you can build one that will serve both purposes? Our board is open to the concept.”

Townsend said the school district has $1.8 million budgeted for the project. The city has about $800,000 budgeted for a cultural arts center, said Wes Morgan, city director of Recreation, Parks and Community Service. In addition, the nonprofit Buena Park Cultural Arts Foundation, founded in 1987 to raise money for the city’s arts programs, will also assist in fund raising, Morgan said.

The challenge is to come up with a design that not only is within budget but meets the needs of both the school district and city.

Townsend said the school needs a building that would serve as an eating and meeting area with a flat floor. On the other hand, the city envisions a performing arts center with raised seating, Morgan said.

Morgan said the city would like the theater to have a 40-by-60-foot stage, 450 seats, an orchestra pit, a lighting system and a lobby that could double as an art gallery.

Since 1965, the city has been involved in the cultural arts, and over the years, the programs have grown. Currently, the performing arts programs are staged at Buena Park High School’s theater and the city’s Community Recreation Center. The City Council chamber serves as a gallery for the works of local artists.

City leaders said they are committed to furthering the arts in the community.

“I think (the concept) deserved an evaluation because any time you can get (different) agencies using the same facility, the bottom line is less cost to the government, which is less cost to the citizens,” Councilman Don R. Griffin said.

Griffin said arts programs in the community are a plus for citizens since they enrich and improve the quality of their lives.