Santa Ana Seeks Lure for Arts Groups : Special District Proposed for Museums, Theaters

Concerned by reports that some cultural groups are contemplating moving out of Santa Ana, the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency has begun a program to try to keep arts groups happy where they are.

As its first step, the agency met recently with representatives of 24 mostly Santa Ana-based cultural and performing groups to discuss their needs and how the new Cultural/Arts Community Program might meet them.

Project manager Erica Taylor described the program as “a very preliminary step” to retain the groups in the city while planning for a Santa Ana Museum District is under way.

The museum district is envisioned as a mixed-use cultural and commercial development on a triangular, 90-acre site bounded by the Santa Ana Freeway, Broadway and 17th Street. Included in the arts cluster would be the existing Bowers Museum--which will begin a $12-million expansion late next year--as well as an “Arts Plaza” (facing the museum on Main Street) with public open space flanked by two office towers. Behind the towers would be a second large museum. The plan also calls for other cultural groups to occupy ground-floor space in office buildings through joint-use agreements.

Major benefits to the city from increased arts activity would include making office buildings more attractive to potential tenants, spinoff revenue for restaurants and retail shops, and the potential to extend the vitality of key areas of the city to 18 hours a day.

Taylor told the cultural groups that the Redevelopment Agency is prepared to offer aid in writing grants, finding space and developing community support. At their next meeting Jan. 20, the groups will begin drafting a plan to create a formal Santa Ana Cultural Commission.

Workshop attendees included representatives from the Alternative Repertory Theatre, the Discovery Museum, the Modern Museum of Art, Orange County Black Actors Theatre, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, St. Joseph Ballet and Rancho Santiago College’s fine arts and performing arts departments.

Finding low-cost space and getting help for administrative chores are major problems for most of these groups.

Space is the chief worry of the homeless Black Actors Theatre, which--with its annual operating budget of $102,000--has been unable to locate an affordable facility of at least 2,500 square feet for a 50-seat theater. (The company, which has used the stage at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa for some recent productions, will next appear at the Anaheim Cultural Center for a 4-weekend run of Jeff Stetson’s drama about Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, “The Meeting.”)

The theater’s producing artistic director, Adleane Hunter, said she is only “cautiously optimistic” about the city’s efforts to aid arts groups, having lived through another period of promises in the mid-1980s from then-city manager Robert Bobb, whose ambitious plans did not pan out after he left office in 1986.

“The (understanding from the city) was that there was not going to be support--that the city didn’t have the resources or perhaps the desire to invest in the arts,” she said. “Now they see that there’s some value (in the arts), that there is something they can gain out of it.

Still, speaking for smaller, woefully understaffed arts groups, she said: “Most of us felt we’d been strung out before, and we want to feel there’s commitment from the top. . . . I don’t have that kind of time to put in if they aren’t serious about it.”

For the Discovery Museum--a “hands-on” institution specializing in county history that subleases 11 acres from the school district--the primary lure of active city involvement with the arts is money.

Museum director Karen Johnson said the city should consider such strategies as designating some hotel tax proceeds specifically for the arts, generating arts revenue by adding a few pennies to property taxes and using bonds to provide capital funds for arts organizations.

City backing could also yield significant indirect rewards, she said: “If I were to apply for state park bond money, which is generally forthcoming every 2 years in the area of historic preservation, and if my application came with the blessings of the city of Santa Ana and the county of Orange--it would have a much more positive hearing.

“To design a cultural presence (in Santa Ana) without talking to those who are delivering a direct service makes no sense at all.”

At the same time, however, her museum (which plans to expand into a large, interactive facility serving 750,000 to 1 million visitors annually) is also looking into the possibility of an arts park proposed by a group associated with Art Spaces Irvine.

In conjunction with the Natural History Foundation of Orange County in Newport Beach and the Dana Point Marine Institute, the Discovery Museum is “talking about whether it makes sense for us to build our own institutions in close proximity on one site or to build one large complex,” Johnson said.

“I think there is a real need for more culture in the central Orange County area, and I’m willing to meet with anybody who wants to foster that.”

In the scant 2 weeks since the workshop, Taylor has come up with six potential sites for the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, which have been narrowed down by the center to three.

Her approach was to contact building owners about empty lobby space, unusable for offices and therefore not likely to generate leasing revenue. “They might be interested in exhibiting art (there),” she said. “Having art in the building might be a real selling point for potential tenants.”

Although Taylor would not identify the sites she is still negotiating with, the art collective will probably move to downtown Santa Ana from its current Harbor Business Park site.

“We are just real thrilled,” said Bardene Allen, director of the Center for Contemporary Art. “We should know sometime during the next 2 or 3 weeks. (The city) apparently is also going to be offering assistance with printing and advertising. They fortunately think we’re a valuable resource for the city.

“So far Santa Ana hasn’t done much for the arts--we’d been searching all over Orange County for a spot. It’s kind of nice to be wanted. It’s not just talk; they really seem to be doing something positive.”

Allen said she would push for events involving all the arts groups, “like a special fiesta that would concentrate on the ethnic mix of Santa Ana.”

Taylor’s next project is using her business contacts to find studio space for Relampago del Cielo Ballet Folklorico. The Mexican folk-dance company needs a 2,500-square-foot wooden floor for rehearsal, but it can’t be a polished floor because the dancers wear hobnailed Spanish shoes. And the group can afford rent of only about $800 a month--far below market rates, according to the company’s general director Rosie Pena.

“It’s a big help to have somebody out there actually pushing,” company development director Ed Lucero said. “Anything is better than nothing; before we had nothing, and now we at least have something.”

But what would a building owner get out of the deal?

“Whoever is the sponsor is going to get their name in lights,” Taylor said. “(Relampago) has a lot of ties in the Hispanic community--and a 2,000-name mailing list.”