Architect Strikes Confident Note on Disney Hall

As the latest evidence that the long-troubled Walt Disney Concert Hall project is troubled no longer, even its ever-cautious architect, Frank O. Gehry, willingly discussed tentative plans for additions to his design for the new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In an interview Wednesday, he also praised the selection of a new construction chief for the project, Jack Burnell, who most recently was a principal with the Chicago-based architecture firm Perkins & Will.

“It is very positive--my people like him, I have met him, I feel very comfortable with him,” said Gehry, who in the last year almost parted ways with the project in battles with Disney Hall fund-raising Chairman Eli Broad over several crucial issues, including the project’s budget and the right to finalize its design--all of which have now been resolved.

“If any of these guys get feisty like they did before, now they’ll have somebody to talk to,” Gehry said.

He confirmed that Disney officials gave his firm approval late last week to complete working drawings for the newest venue of the downtown Music Center. According to Broad, groundbreaking for the hall will take place before the end of the year--a more conservative assessment than his earlier predictions that construction could begin this summer. Gehry said Broad’s timeline is possible, but “it’s going to be close. I think it takes 10 months to complete the drawings, then get hard bids [from contractors].” He added that hall officials’ commitment to have the auditorium open by 2001 “is for other people to decide.”

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In addition to finishing the hall’s drawings, Gehry is working on plans for an administration building on the site, loosely estimated to cost $10 million, for which the architect will waive his design fees of about $1 million.

A third structure will house the 200-seat theater for the California Institute of the Arts. Pending county approval, one proposal would put the CalArts facility in a portion of the space currently occupied by the county-owned concert hall parking garage, which is mostly underground. The structure would assume some of the above-ground space, with an entrance at Hope and 2nd streets, and could eliminate up to 200 parking spaces in the 2,370-space garage.

“It would be kind of nice to have a separate entrance, like a backdoor theater. Everybody likes that idea. That’s the favorite,” Gehry said.

The architect’s remarks came after a news conference Wednesday naming Burnell as president and chief executive overseeing construction. Hall officials also made public the names of donors of $20 million in new funding for the project.

The new gifts include $5 million each from the Ahmanson Foundation, the Weingart Foundation and an anonymous donor, as well as $1-million gifts from William Brady III, KPMG Peat Marwick and the Pasadena Junior Philharmonic Committee. Norma Baker Krueger, Northrop Grumman, the Union Bank of California Foundation, Ticketmaster of Southern California and many others made smaller gifts. The Ahmanson Foundation has also approved $2.5 million for the beautification of the Music Center complex.

These gifts plus a previously announced donation of $5 million from Walt Disney’s nephew, Roy E. Disney, and his wife, Patty, have secured the $25-million matching grant offered by the Disney Co. in December. Broad confirmed that Wednesday’s gifts bring the new total to about $176 million--88% of the approximately $200 million needed to complete the concert hall (an additional $55 million already has been spent on the design process). He said the fund-raising campaign has brought in an additional $19 million in endowment gifts.

Disney Hall and Disney Co. officials were buoyed Wednesday by the fact that the firm’s challenge was met in 60 days, and Broad said he expects the rest of the funding to roll in within the next several months.

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Although the Disney Co. donation did not, as some had hoped, spur other entertainment companies to make gifts to the hall, Disney Co. Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs John F. Cooke, who attended Wednesday’s news conference, said the firm was never married to that goal.

“We knew how vast and wide the city is, and we were not looking to any one segment,” he said. “I think what was motivating us was a general sense of purpose. . . . There were a number of segments that might step up. I think that 60 days is really remarkable, and we are pleased with that.”

Although optimism is the name of the game these days, Gehry cautioned that there still could be reason for concern because of what the construction business is calling the “millennium factor”--so many buildings around the country want to open their doors in or close to 2001 that cost estimates from subcontractors and contractors are rising. “It’s supply and demand,” he said.

“Recently, on three or four of our projects, there’s been a big jump in estimates. . . . We are experiencing it on projects in Seattle, Ohio and New York,” he said. “I haven’t bid anything in L.A., and this is not an exact science.”

Gehry remains confident, however, that the “millennium factor” will not derail Disney Hall. “Everybody is aware of it, and we’ll take that into account,” he said.