Plans for O.C. Theater District to Be Unveiled

A coalition of business leaders, restaurant owners and arts executives is expected to announce today plans to dub the neighborhood adjacent to South Coast Plaza the Orange County Theater District.

At a press conference to be held this morning at Jerry’s Famous Deli, the group--headed by Henry Segerstrom, managing partner of C.J. Segerstrom & Sons, which owns the huge shopping mall; and James Edwards III, president of the Edwards Cinemas movie chain--will unveil plans to form the district, along with a splashy logo, as part of a promotional campaign to make this city a national arts destination.

The arts-destination theme has been sounded before in recent months by officials of the nearby Orange County Performing Arts Center, who want to expand the center and who plan to attend the news conference. But this is the first indication that Edwards Cinemas, the largest California-based movie house chain, will be involved in efforts to lure tourists and shoppers to the area for a cultural experience.

Edwards is expected to announce plans to renovate several aging multiplexes in the neighborhood near Bristol Street and Sunflower Avenue, possibly turning them into art houses showing offbeat and independent movies.

Officials of the Performing Arts Center have talked for more than a year about a preliminary study that calls for construction of a second major venue, a concert hall, to be built on land owned by the Segerstrom family adjacent to the center.

Still, until the family gives the land to the center, no concrete plans can go forward, such as the launching of a capital campaign to finance construction of the hall, expected to cost at least $75 million.

Organizers of the press conference, Hahn Communications, declined to comment Tuesday.

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Officials of South Coast Repertory and the center who were invited to the conference said Tuesday they did not know the details of the Theater District plan. “It’s kind of not our party,” said David Emmes, producing artistic director of SCR, the county’s largest professional resident theater company, which is across the street from the mall. “It’s being done by South Coast Plaza.”

Among the other officials expected at the press conference are Board of Supervisors Chairman William G. Steiner and Performing Arts Center President Jerry E. Mandel.

If the Edwards chain makes much-needed renovations to its movie houses near South Coast Plaza and turns them into art houses, it would make good on a pledge to expand its offerings of independent and offbeat fare.

When the chain opened its 21-screen megaplex at the Irvine Spectrum two years ago, it promised that at least one of its screens there, if not several, would be dedicated to art house movies. But that never happened.

In the South Coast Plaza area, the chain shows some art house fare at Edwards Town Center, a four-plex, and more mainstream fare at Edwards South Coast Plaza, a triplex. It also books some art house movies at South Coast Village 3, a nearby triplex in Santa Ana.