Entertainment Firm Buys Wright Center

The city-owned Dorill B. Wright Cultural Center, which has sat dark for seven years, is being sold for $1.1 million to a Simi Valley entertainment company.

Pacific Coast Entertainment, which makes independent films and distributes videos and music CDs, plans to transform the 564-seat theater into a studio and movie theater.

“We’re buying a finished facility,” said Tracy Kall, company president. “Someone has invested millions of dollars there, and they didn’t know what to do with it. Well, I know what to do with it.”

Kall said her company, which averages more than $100 million in sales annually, will use the theater as a recording studio and digital film training center.

The City Council approved the sale in a 4-0 vote Wednesday, with Councilman Jonathan Sharkey abstaining.

Kall said her company plans to screen independent films three days a week and host an international film festival at the center. She also said she wants to book well-known entertainers, rent the theater out for conventions and list it with Hollywood studios for film shoots.

“We hope to put the place on the map,” she said.

The city built the theater in 1984 for $2 million. With an intimate setting and top-rate acoustics, the venue drew praise from performers, but did not have the audience support to cover the $250,000 annual operating cost.

An annual city subsidy of $150,000 helped, but many believed that the theater, which is at the beach on Surfside Drive, was too far from the freeway to attract patrons from outside Port Hueneme and Oxnard.

Following a budget crisis, the venue was shut in 1993.

The city put the theater on the market last spring for $975,000. Seven offers at that price helped up the price and the city finally settled on the offer from Pacific Coast Entertainment, said Greg Brown, city director of community development.

Former Port Hueneme Mayor Dorill Wright, whose name will remain on the building, said he is pleased that the cultural center will still be used for the arts.