Site to Be Converted Into Artists’ Center

Using money earmarked by voters for youth programs, the city of Los Angeles bought an old Pacific Bell building in Canoga Park Thursday to convert into a center for young artists.

Earlier this year, the City Council allotted $235,000 of Proposition K money, part of a $25-million bond approved by voters in 1996, to purchase a building for the arts center. The city chose the Pacific Bell site, at Remmet Avenue and Sherman Way. The building had been vacant for several years.

Suzanne Hackett, executive director of the Valley Cultural Center, said the new Junior Arts Center of Canoga Park will give young people “access to the tools of the trade” while nurturing their creativity.

“When I was 17, I dreamed about having this kind of facility,” she said. As a teenager growing up in Burbank, the only art center that Hackett, a budding cartoonist and filmmaker, had was a small stage she shared with her friends in the storeroom of a local record store.

The city’s Cultural Affairs and General Services departments will now evaluate the building, which was damaged in the 1994 earthquake, to see what type of rehabilitation it needs, said Karen Constine, Councilwoman Laura Chick’s chief of staff.