Old ‘Y’ May Be Turned Into Digital-Arts Campus

For eight years, the old YMCA building at Civic Center Drive and Broadway has sat vacant, its Roman arches, adobe tiles and terra cotta flourishes slowly disintegrating.

The 76-year-old building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has been used only occasionally for police training sessions. The walls of the gym are still splotched by paintballs fired during exercises.

But the building might not be empty much longer.

Officials at City Hall, UC Irvine and Santa Ana College have devised a plan to restore the facility and turn it into a campus for students of computer animation, Web design and other digital arts.

The city bought the three-story building in 1992 for about $625,000. About five years ago, activists lobbied the city to turn it into a homeless shelter. That plan fell through, partly because the building’s large classrooms and halls didn’t lend themselves to single-occupancy housing, said Mayor Miguel A. Pulido.

A few years ago, Pulido and officials from the two schools conceived the campus plan during a series of meetings in Pulido’s living room. So far, the city has spent about $600,000 on planning the project.

“I said, ‘Let’s take this building we already purchased and make it into something worthwhile,’ ” he said. “We’ll save [the schools] time on the brick-and-mortar side of the equation, because here’s the building.”

All that’s needed now, officials say, is about $9.8 million to bring the building up to code, restore its classic architecture and install the computer technology needed to make it run.

Pulido said the city will apply for state and federal funds to pay for construction, which officials estimate could be finished by fall 2002. The city plans to allow the colleges to use the refurbished classrooms and galleries at no cost.

The restoration is part of the city’s long-term plan to transform the once-blighted downtown area into a mecca for arts and education.

With UC Irvine’s art lessons for elementary school children in the city, the Orange County High School of the Arts opening its new campus in a former bank in September, and the proposed digital-arts campus, Santa Ana youngsters can receive training in the arts from kindergarten to college, Pulido said.

Cal State Fullerton opened a headquarters for graduate studio-art studies in a vintage building downtown last year. Santa Ana put $7.2 million into the Grand Central Art Center, which has helped bring students, theaters and businesses into the Artists Village district.

“UCI really wanted to respond to the city’s Artists Village project,” said Jill Beck, the university’s Dean of the School of the Arts.

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Alex Katz can be reached at (714) 966-5977.