Arts Center Still in Limbo After 12 Years of Talk

To build or not to build a new performance theater is a decade-old question for Westminster residents and officials.

So far, that discussion has cost almost $800,000, but the city is no closer to getting a proposed cultural arts center.

Some members of the Cultural Arts Commission are lobbying hard for the center that would include a theater to replace the demolished Hoover Auditorium. But the City Council remains divided over plans for a project with a price tag between $8 million and $15 million.

“If you ask the council, ‘Do you want a cultural arts center?’ you will get five ‘yes’ [votes],” said council member Kermit Marsh. “Can we afford it? That’s a different question.”

According to Marsh--who believes the city cannot afford the project--the council has not decided whether to build a center. Last time it was voted upon, Mayor Frank Fry and council member Margie Rice wanted to go forward with the project. Council members Joy Neugebauer and Tony Lam supported the idea but said the city could not afford it, Marsh said.

Although the council is undecided and the project may never be realized, the city has discussed the issue for 12 years and spent $2.5 million buying land for the center, in addition to the $800,000 spent on designs and studies. Council members have also viewed and reviewed a multitude of architectural designs.

“It’s madness,” said Robert Crossley. “I’ve been yelling about this for years.”

Crossley, a member of the Cultural Arts Commission and a former member of the Financial Review Committee, said the city must address issues such as repairing roads and spending money on parks before building a theater.

But other residents said the city needs a theater.

“It’s top priority for me,” said Donna French, another member of the Cultural Arts Commission. “Performers will be going out of the city to perform. . . . We need a community meeting place.”

Current plans call for a 31,000-square-foot center with a 414-seat theater and banquet rooms for as many as 700 people on property across from City Hall on Westminster Avenue.

“We tore down the [old] auditorium,” French said. “We have to have somewhere for our people in the city to perform.”

The arts center was originally budgeted at $7 million, but the price tag escalated, prompting some council members to reverse their stand on the issue, arguing the city cannot afford a project of that size.

Nonetheless, city staff has been directed to prepare for another study, a so-called feasibility study that would assess the public’s need for an arts center.

And even if the study won’t be ready for the next couple of months, French is still hopeful theater magic may happen, and illusion will become reality.

“I think we will see [a theater] in the near future,” she said. “We’re keeping our fingers crossed.”

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Louise Roug can be reached at (714) 966-5977