Santa Clarita Put Off by Museum’s Big Price Tag

The city’s interest in luring the prestigious Southwest Museum away from Los Angeles has been dimmed, if not put out, by the relocation’s $35-million price tag.

In a letter to the city, the director of Los Angeles’ oldest museum said that while the area has good freeway access and proximity to other communities that would support a museum, the city still has to demonstrate it has the population and financial base to build the museum and sustain it.

Earlier this summer, the city had responded to a request for proposals from the 86-year-old cultural center, one of the nation’s foremost repositories of American Indian art and archeology. Supporters of the plan to bring the museum to Santa Clarita said the museum would blend well with the city, which is home to the Western Walk of Fame and the William S. Hart Museum.

But the project’s price tag may be too steep for a five-year-old city that plans to develop a civic center and has hopes of building a performing arts center.

“From an economic development point of view, something like this is great to look at,” said City Manager George Caravalho. “But if it amounts to a large amount of money, I don’t see us getting into it.”

Caravalho said the city has other construction needs that cannot be ignored, such as roads, bridges and parks.

The museum, now based in the Mt. Washington area if Los Angeles, attracts more than 75,000 people a year, and hopes to find space to more than double in size from its current 43,000-square-foot facility. A new 100,000-square-foot site would host about 300,000 visitors annually to attend performances, classes, lectures and festivals.

The museum has received more than 80 responses, said the museum’s executive director Thomas Wilson in his letter, adding that “some of the best proposals that we have received are those where there are creative public-private partnerships.”

While most cities, including Santa Clarita, offered free land to host the museum, it is not clear if any of the proposals included commitments to public financing of the museum construction or its operations.

Many cities, including Malibu, Moorpark, Garden Grove, Thousand Oaks and Ventura, responded to invitations mailed earlier this year seeking proposals.

Wilson could not be reached for comment.