Panel OKs $500,000 for Madrid Theatre

A City Council committee recommended Wednesday that the full council approve $500,000 in additional federal funding for the long-awaited Madrid Theatre project, putting its latest budget estimate at $3.55 million.

The council is expected to vote on the matter Friday.

“I know what a catalyst these theaters can be to a business district,” Councilman Rudy Svorinich, chairman of the Housing and Community Redevelopment Committee, said in endorsing the extra funding. The $500,000 will come from federal Housing and Urban Development money given to the city after the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Karen Constine, deputy to Councilwoman Laura Chick, said the additional funds were needed because the lowest construction bid for the theater building--apart from surrounding landscaping and improvements--came back about 7% higher than the city’s initial estimate.

In a memo discussing the additional funds, Community Redevelopment Agency Administrator John Molloy said bids routinely come back as much as 10% higher than the city’s original estimate.

“So the actual cost is within an acceptable range of expected deviation,” he wrote.

Constine said that costs of additional items and services are based on the bid for the theater itself, so that when the bid comes in high, those other costs increase. City officials learned of the increased costs in January but have needed the intervening months to assemble a plan to make up the difference and keep the project on budget, Constine said.

Workers broke ground on the project in February and an opening is still set for early 1998. The planned 500-seat theater in the 21600 block of Sherman Way has been viewed as a measure of the San Fernando Valley’s recovery from the earthquake.

The Madrid site also has a colorful history. In the early decades of the century, it was a popular cinema before new owners turned it into the X-rated Pussycat Theater.