Bids Exceed Budget for Auditorium : Preservation: The City Council seeks ways to scale back renovation plans for the 55-year-old building. The re-evaluation will take at least three months.

After almost a decade of debate, plans to renovate and expand the historic Civic Auditorium have again been delayed, this time for at least six months, because bids sought for the project exceed the city’s estimate.

The City Council on Tuesday rejected as too high all bids for the initial two phases of the four-phase, $12-million project.

Officials said they might need to take a more conservative approach to improving the 55-year-old building at 1401 N. Verdugo Road.

The city has set aside $7.46 million for the first two phases to make repairs and add 22,000 square feet of new facilities to the cavernous auditorium--a popular site for high school dances, social events and community shows.

But the lowest of six bids received in March was more than $7.9 million, or 6.5% higher than the city’s budgeted amount.

Nello Iacono, director of Parks, Recreation and Community Services, said the city staff plans “to thoroughly evaluate architectural plans to look for ways to modify and reduce project costs.”

He said a proposal to build decorative fountains could be eliminated, for example, and less expensive wall furnishings and carpeting could be installed.

Re-evaluation will take at least three months before new bids are sought, Iacono said. Construction is not expected to begin for at least six to eight months.

Additional phases call for building a three-level, 376-space parking garage north of the building, and improving Verdugo Road, which together are expected to cost another $4.9 million.

Architectural consultants in 1990 warned that construction costs had escalated since 1984, when the city first began to debate what to do with the 58,000-square-foot auditorium. City officials originally had proposed spending about $1.2 million to renovate the building, a public works project constructed in 1938.

However, some officials had suggested that the facility be torn down and replaced with a new complex. That proposal triggered an outcry from residents, who argued that the auditorium holds historical and sentimental significance. Preservationists have fought to retain the building’s Spanish Colonial, or Mission style, architectural theme.

After years of debate, the cost estimates of renovation climbed to more than $3 million. The council finally voted in 1988 to preserve and expand the building and add a parking garage at a total cost then estimated at $9.2 million. Costs were again revised in 1990 to almost $12 million--the figure the city is still using today.

The design specifications for the first two phases of the project, including renovation and expansion of the auditorium, were approved by the council in January. That action led to the rejection of all bids this week.

Since the debate began, the city has spent about $1 million in major repairs, including repainting the exterior and interior of the building, upgrading the auditorium sound system and replacing a portion of the roof over the main building, Iacono said.