Focus Expanded on Wright Center Study

Port Hueneme officials have expanded the scope of a marketing study that will examine potential uses for the moribund Dorill B. Wright Cultural Center.

The City Council on Wednesday approved widening the analysis in an attempt to give performing arts groups a greater role in determining what to do with the $2-million center, which closed during a municipal budget crisis in 1993.

Tom Figg, community development director, said the decision shows the city hasn’t ruled out the possibility that the arts community could band together to generate the revenue necessary to operate the center.

“It gives the performing arts community a stake in the outcome of the project,” he said.

The council allocated as much as $5,400 more for the study, with all but $100 coming from a city-administered cultural center endowment fund. The council originally approved spending $5,000 to hire Pacific Group, a Burlingame-based company, to conduct the initial study late last year.

The study will examine using the center for a variety of purposes, including converting it into offices or a convention center. As a result of the council action, a greater emphasis will be placed on determining whether arts groups have the financial capability to manage and program events at the facility, Figg said.

The 588-seat arts center is architecturally striking and boasts acoustics unparalleled in the county, but the facility costs an estimated $250,000 a year to operate, officials say.