Laguna Beach, Festival of Arts OK 40-Year Deal to Fund Improvements

The Laguna Beach City Council is expected to sign a 40-year lease tonight with the Festival of Arts, formally ending years of negotiations during which organizers threatened to move the popular summer event from the canyon compound it has occupied since 1932.

The lease, the product of six years of negotiation, guarantees that 6% of the revenue generated by the festival will be spent on capital improvements, said Mayor Wayne Baglin.

The money is expected to pay for new buildings for the production staff, a storm drain to prevent flooding and a retaining wall to protect the Laguna Canyon site from landslides.

Other improvements expected to be funded include remodeling the stage area, upgrading the sound system, and improving or rebuilding the community theater.

“There has never been a 40-year lease between the two entities,” said Bruce Rasner, president of the festival board and part of the negotiating team.

“We now have the opportunity to avoid any future impasses for [40 years] and have the ability to finance major redevelopment of the grounds,” he said.

Laguna Beach has hosted the eight-week exhibition of more than 150 regional artists since 1932.

Festival directors said they were close to signing the lease in August, but Baglin said there were nagging details -- such as what qualified as a capital expense -- that had to be resolved.

Under the new lease, the festival will pay Laguna Beach $200,000 a year to rent the property, considerably less than the $600,000 yearly it had been paying. It was those rent checks that prompted the festival board to search for a new site in 1996.

As negotiations deteriorated, festival directors threatened to move the event to San Clemente. Those directors were later recalled and replaced.

A new board of directors ran into its own share of frustrations with the city, but the two sides have met regularly since last year. All nine members of the festival board and the City Council will sign the lease at tonight’s council meeting.

Baglin said he will ask that the council agenda be adjusted so that the festival lease is signed before the council is reorganized with a new mayor and new council member.

“I think that the council that worked so hard to put it into place should be the council that votes on it,” Baglin said.