Taper Reveals Santa Monica Plan : Arts: The prominent L.A. theater company says it will open a two-stage complex in Bergamot Station. A private donor will pay $4.4 million for the structures on city land.

The Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles’ most prominent theater company, is planning to open a two-stage theater at Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station, a largely commercial art gallery complex.

An anonymous private donor has agreed to pay about $4.4 million for rusted, empty structures that would house 350- and 99-seat Taper theaters in 34,000 square feet on the southwest side of the Bergamot, near Michigan Avenue and Cloverfield Boulevard. Escrow is scheduled to close by Dec. 15.

The land is owned by the city of Santa Monica, but its buildings currently are owned by private parties. The donor plans to lease two of the three warehouses to the Taper’s parent company, the Center Theatre Group, for $1 a year.

If the deal is completed, the Taper will retain its anchor theater at the Downtown Music Center and will complement its programming in Santa Monica.

Taper officials would not say exactly how much the project might cost, but sources close to the project say the Taper expects to spend at least $7 million building the theaters.

At Bergamot Station, the Taper would join some of the area’s most adventurous and well-known commercial art galleries in a location that is increasingly becoming a primary arts anchor for the Westside.

The expansive complex’s ample parking areas would be used nearly round the clock, bringing together the commercial enterprises that operate during the day with the nonprofit Taper, which operates public programs primarily at night.

Several sources close to the deal said Hiro Yamagata, an artist and arts patron who has supported Taper projects in the past, is the donor buying the buildings. Yamagata could not be reached for comment, and his attorney, Susan Grode, who is a member of the Center Theatre Group board of directors, declined to comment.

Center Theatre Group Artistic Director Gordon Davidson said Monday that “we are working very hard to make this come together. We are excited by all the prospects and are looking forward to a very creative and challenging experiment. Bergamot is a wonderful place, and I’m glad we’re at this initial stage, but it won’t be all signed and sealed for a while.”

Speaking in April at a Santa Monica City Council meeting, Davidson said that Taper programs at Bergamot would include new plays that might then move to the Music Center, educational programs and “interactions with film and TV.”

When an endowment for programming expenses for the new theaters is included, the Taper’s fund-raising goal could reach $20 million, according to one source. The money has yet to be raised.

The Entertainment Council, a group of Taper supporters from the entertainment industry, has taken on much of the responsibility for raising that money, according to members of the council.

Sid Ganis, a Sony executive and Center Group board member who heads the entertainment council, said that when he saw the space, his “heart jumped.” He predicted entertainment industry officials will support the space because “it’s closer to the industry both physically and psychologically” than the Downtown Music Center.

The location, close to MGM/UA studio headquarters, as well as Savoy Pictures and Skywalker Studios, is in a neighborhood “where movie and TV artists gather,” and the renovated warehouses would have “a rougher creative feeling than the Music Center and more of a sense of a breeding ground,” Ganis said.

“Once you get a look at it and see how it’s both funky and functional, it’s a big eye-opener for [movie/TV] industries that are constantly referring to innovation,” he said.

Screenwriter Allan Burns, another member of the entertainment council and the Center Group board, said the Bergamot is “a great place for people who tend to shy away from Downtown. It’s an area that’s very accessible, close to [the Santa Monica and San Diego] freeways. And it’s not the high-rent district, like Beverly Hills or Brentwood, so it’s welcoming to people from all over the Westside.”

Shoshana-Wayne Gallery owner Wayne Blank owns most of the buildings at Bergamot Station with partner Tom Patchett. Blank is selling the portion of the Taper building that he and Patchett own, and is also coordinating the sale of the rest of the building on behalf of its other owner, American Appliance Co.

Blank said the Taper’s presence “will enhance us tremendously” and predicted that the combined gallery/theater complex will become “the largest private cultural center in the world in terms of what it has in one safe, easily accessible, well-defined area.”

Likewise, the Taper will benefit from “a huge built-in audience” of patrons of Bergamot’s 20 galleries, Blank said. He estimated that the current overlap between the Taper mailing list and the combined Bergamot mailing lists is only about 10%, providing both with the opportunity to expand their audiences.

A restaurant is also in the works for Bergamot Station, which would enable visitors to dine on the premises between gallery-hopping and show time. Patchett will own the restaurant, which will be operated by well-known Westside chef Hans Rockenwagner.