Study Finds Arts Plaza Generates $22 Million a Year

The 5-year-old Civic Arts Plaza generates as much as $22 million in annual revenue for the city, according to a recent study by Pepperdine University researchers.

The City Council tonight is expected to review the report, which calculates the income generated by the city’s Alliance for the Arts, the Theatres Department and other secondary sources. It also determines whether the money would have gone elsewhere in Thousand Oaks or is actually a net increase in the city’s overall financial performance.

“We are concerned not so much with the total revenues resulting from an activity, but rather with the revenues that would not have otherwise occurred,” the researchers wrote. “For instance, a dollar that would have . . . gone to a Thousand Oaks movie theater, in the same scenario, would not be included.”

Under that formula, the Pepperdine researchers determined the arts plaza’s “total economic impact” to be as much as $22 million annually.

The research group determined that every dollar spent from a contributor to the Alliance for the Arts--the arts plaza’s fund-raising arm--generated nearly $5 of revenue for the community. Likewise, for every dollar spent by the Theatres Department, which oversees much of the arts programs at the center, the city received three times that in return.

“It was extremely good news,” said Patricia Moore, executive director for the alliance. “Since the theaters have been here, it has really pumped a lot of money into the local economy--not just ticket sales but also a lot that goes along with that.”