$115 Million Raised for O.C. Hall

Despite a sluggish economy, the Orange County Performing Arts Center has collected $15 million over the last year toward a second concert hall, officials said Tuesday. But the total remains well short of their $200-million target.

Altogether, the center has raised $115 million through the fiscal year that ended June 30, officials said. The balance is needed by September 2006, when the new building -- with a 2,000-seat concert hall and a 500-seat all-purpose theater -- is scheduled to open.

Although fund-raisers are pleased with their progress, “I’d love to see things move a little faster,” said Jerry E. Mandel, the center’s president. “But we’re going to get there and we will open on time. We just have to keep moving.”

Fund-raising efforts for major gifts will continue for six to 12 months, said Paul Folino, chairman of the center’s board. Public appeals will be made when $150 million is collected.

Provided “the economy gives us a little help,” he said, officials hope to have raised $130 million by the end of this year, leaving more than two years to raise the rest. One positive sign: The bulk of the money collected in the last two years has come in the last six months.

“To do what we’ve done in a very tough economic environment shows we’re on a roll here,” he said. “The key is not to get complacent and keep pushing forward. We keep reinforcing to the public and donors that this is a $200-million project and there’s still work to be done.”

Preliminary results for the recent fiscal year, released Tuesday, showed healthy ticket sales and contributions, officials said. More than 402,000 people paid to see center-presented events, bringing in a record $21.1 million in ticket sales. Contributions totaled $7.4 million.

Fund-raising for the new building has advanced in fits and starts since July 1999, when center officials announced they would seek a $50-million “naming gift” to kick off the campaign.

The design phase ground to a halt in October 1999 because financing had not been secured. Ten months later, South Coast Plaza shopping center mogul Henry T. Segerstrom donated $40 million, the largest gift ever to the arts in Orange County.

Segerstrom, the force behind the fund drive for the original center, also donated five acres valued at about $16 million to the project when the campaign began.

The drive chugged along steadily until Sept. 11, 2001, when nonprofit groups nationwide were slammed in the wake of the terrorist attacks and the subsequent recession.

About $20 million has been raised in the two years since. Although Mandel acknowledged Tuesday that fund-raising had lagged, he said that beginning construction will maintain public interest and show potential donors that the center will be completed on time.

Construction started July 7. The new building site, formerly a parking lot, lies behind 8-foot cream-colored walls west of the existing theater. The asphalt has been stripped away, leaving a vacant lot punctuated with weeds and a tall pile of rubble.

Most big projects of this kind start construction after reaching the halfway point in fund-raising, Folino said. Although officials had said that construction wouldn’t begin until $125 million to $150 million had been collected -- a mark they had aimed to reach by the end of 2002 -- that threshold was lowered to ensure the building would be completed in time, Folino said.

The construction project manager, Aliso Viejo-based Fluor Corp., has guaranteed the project’s price, ensuring cost overruns will not delay the work. That vow makes the building more attractive to potential donors because they have assurance it will be completed on time, Mandel said.

The new facility is needed, officials said, because the existing 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall is overbooked. On average, the hall is dark only 24 days of the year.

The center is raising money at a difficult time. Giving has declined overall since the late 1990s, said Leo P. Arnoult, chairman of the American Assn. of Fund-raising Counsel Trust for Philanthropy -- which produces an annual report on philanthropy in the United States -- and president of a Memphis fund-raising consulting firm.

Competition for contributions among nonprofits has become fierce, he said. “The economy has become so tepid that many projects are having to be reassessed,” Arnoult said.

“Any that are still being done to the same scope are invariably taking longer to raise what they need.”

For example, the $272-million Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles will open this fall, 16 years after fund-raising began.