By Niki Cervantes
Staff Writer

January 21, 2016 -- After 18 months of analysis, a working group established to guide recreation of Santa Monica’s historic, but now shuttered, Civic Auditorium is calling for help from philanthropists, the affluent city’s entertainment community and others in the private sector.

A newly released report by the Civic Working Group suggests ways to transform the 10-acre auditorium site downtown into a new mixed-use arts and cultural district while still maintaining its storied sense of history.

The re-opened Civic site would become the “cultural heart of Santa Monica,” the nine-member group said in its 40-page report, breathing new life into a spot that was known as the place to be for experiences as varied as the crooning of Frank Sinatra to go-go dancers, the Rolling Stones and punk rockers.

“The legacy of the Civic is rich; it is an architecturally significant building that heralded a generation of performing arts in which Santa Monica played an important role,” the analysis notes.

Today’s aging Civic and its sea of surface parking “are vestiges of another era and no longer fit with significant changes in the cultural marketplace or contemporary ideas about good place-making,” the report finds.

The City Council decided in 2013 to close the Civic Auditorium, which by that time was far from its heyday and required ongoing subsidy from the city to operate.

Headed to the City Council for consideration at its February 9 meeting, the findings focus on three possible futures for the auditorium. All are costly, the most expensive of which entails $104 million for the capital investment alone and still would face a $3.4 million annual operating deficit.

It also highlights additional, smaller uses for the rest of the site, ranging from a $5.1 million “education space” to space for artists, rehearsals, a $29 million Fine Arts museum and a $28.7 million Experiential museum.

Operated by nonprofits, outside fundraising would be required for most of them to stay in the black, the report noted.

It says the Council should begin the road back by focusing on the auditorium first, and consider issuing a “request for interest” or “request for qualifications” to gage interest in the project.

Those queries would be aimed at “entertainment, philanthropists” or others potentially “interested in investing and operating the auditorium,” said Karen Ginsburg, the City Community and Cultural Services Director.

A priority would be “minimizing dependence on the City General Fund for annual operations,” the report said.

It does not let the City off the financial hook altogether, however. Among the group’s other recommendations is finding “potential public financing” for construction, such as general obligation bonds, revenue bonds, special assessments, state and federal tax credits and use of some of the citywide hotel tax.

When it made its debut in 1958, the Civic Auditorium was a bedazzling, modernistic display of concrete, glass and steel. As it gained fame, the auditorium was host to the Academy Awards, featuring big names like Bob Hope. It became the place to go for top names in music of all kinds, screaming fans and go-go dancers and, later, the punk-rock scene.

It couldn’t keep up with increasing competition from bigger and more technologically up-to-date venues, like the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. Before finally being shuttered, the auditorium’s events were smaller and much more modest, like craft and trade shows.

The report makes it clear that the historic nature of the auditorium should remain, no matter which path officials take to reopen it.

One scenario in the report re-opens the facility as an “entertainment arts” complex with a private operator. It would cater to regional audiences with a taste for “sophisticated” and “high-end” entertainment. Its initial capital outlay would be about $93 million, the working group found.

Another possibility is turning the auditorium into a “Center for Performing Arts,” aimed at showcasing the work of the local creative community, with some commercial events included. The capital investment would be $98 million.

A third proposal would be creation of an “Arts and Cultural” campus, requiring a capital outlay of $104 million.

The Civic Working Group completed its report in September, but posted it online at the city’s website to give the public a chance to review it in advance before the City Council acts. The group held several community workshops in preparing its findings.

The report details six guiding principles. Among them are preserving the auditorium as a historic landmark and looking for a way to finance its renovation that does not rely on “open-ended” subsidizes from the City. It also calls for collaboration with the City to commemorate the Belmar Triangle neighborhood, which pre-dated the auditorium’s development.

Also included are several recommended priorities, such as investigating plans to allow for a full-size, multi-use field at the site. If the Council decides against doing so, it should “address community desire for a field on this site by building fields elsewhere.”