Council Rejects Flashy Freeway Marquee for Plaza

There will be no massive, flashy electronic marquee built along the Ventura Freeway to advertise the Civic Arts Plaza’s top acts, the City Council has decided.

Instead, council members voted 4 to 0 late Tuesday to consider other, more subtle ways to promote the Charles E. Probst Center for the Performing Arts. The possibilities include erecting a smaller sign, launching a direct-mail campaign, or soliciting more media coverage.

Councilwoman Elois Zeanah was absent.

City leaders were set to consider a recommendation by the plaza’s administrative board for a 40-foot-wide, 14-foot-high marquee just east of the $64-million building. If approved in concept, a detailed proposal would have gone to the Planning Commission and then back to the City Council for final approval.

But Mayor Andy Fox, who initially said the recommendation by the Civic Arts Plaza’s board of governors should be considered like any other request, changed his mind last week. He asked council members to shoot down the idea before it went further and direct the board of governors to devise other ways to market and identify the complex.

Moreover, Fox said, nothing should be done to promote the Civic Arts Plaza until two related issues are straightened out: the plans to develop the land beside the center, and the future of the much-criticized copper curtain hanging on the east side of the building.

Negotiations with potential developer Kilroy Industries to build a movie theater and restaurant complex on the so-called private side of the Civic Arts Plaza are still underway, and a committee trying to come up with ways to improve the appearance of the copper curtain artwork has yet to report its findings.

“It would be premature to go through the process right now,” Fox said, adding that he believed any proposals should wait a year until council members have had more time to gauge the needs of the Civic Arts Plaza.

Although the plans to build a $467,000 marquee next to the Ventura Freeway were extremely premature, they had already come under fire from some residents, who considered the idea to be much too gaudy for Thousand Oaks. And the proposed way of paying for the freeway monument--letting three sponsors share time on a small, rotating section of the sign--was particularly criticized.

Despite their decision to nix a large marquee, however, council members agree that something needs to be done about the appearance of the Civic Arts Plaza facing the Ventura Freeway.

More than 150,000 drivers pass the boxy building each day on the busy highway, and many do not know they are passing a state-of-the-art performing arts complex and Thousand Oaks’ City Hall.