San Clemente OKs Concept for Arts Festival

San Clemente’s City Council on Wednesday approved a concept that officials hope will lure away Laguna Beach’s popular Festival of Arts.

The proposal would bring the festival to a 20-acre site in the Talega development in east San Clemente at a facility to be completed by May 2003. The 40-year lease would give the festival three additional five-year options that could keep it in San Clemente past 2050. Annual rent would start as low as $1 for 2003 and increase to $150,000 or a 6% share of festival revenue by 2014, whichever is less.

“The festival has a certain recognition throughout the region, throughout the country and internationally,” San Clemente City Manager Michael W. Parness said. “This can certainly help the community.”

The facility, to be built with festival funds, would include a 3,000-seat amphitheater, an art museum, a 500-seat performing arts theater, a high-end restaurant and one or two moderately priced restaurants.

The city also has worked out an agreement for the Talega developer to donate an additional 12 acres for an 1,100-space parking lot.

Dozens of San Clemente residents have written to the City Council supporting the concept, and several proponents were at Wednesday night’s meeting to speak for it.

“This is a very exciting opportunity for our city to add a world-class art center and put our city on the map,” said Alex Haynes, president of the San Clemente Chamber of Commerce.

In Laguna Beach, the prospect of losing the popular summer event, which features art shows and the Pageant of the Masters, has drawn protests from residents and festival exhibitors, some of whom want to recall the board.

Some Laguna Beach residents attended the San Clemente meeting to object to what they described as cultural theft.

“Why don’t you leave our history alone and build your own proud history?” asked Don Beres, a Laguna Beach resident.

He and other opponents of the move guaranteed a long battle ahead. “There’s a whole lot of people who will fight this move every step of the way,” John Campbell, another Laguna Beach resident, told the council.

The proposal is the result of four months of talks between San Clemente and the festival’s directors, who received a copy of it Tuesday and are reviewing it before acting on it.

Parness said he presented the board June 15 with a version of the plan, which was then streamlined and clarified.

The festival has been in Laguna Beach since the 1930s. Its lease there expires in September 2001. Its directors are at odds with city officials over how much rent they should pay and how the money should be spent.

The festival now pays about $600,000 a year.