Local News in Brief : Insurance Firms Donate Funds for Arts Park Design Contest

Three insurance companies will donate $150,000 to the Cultural Foundation to help pay for a competition to design the foundation’s proposed Arts Park L.A. in Sepulveda Basin, the foundation announced Wednesday.

The competition is an early step in the foundation’s quest to build a $50-million complex of theaters, art workshops and a museum.

At a foundation board meeting next week, Transamerica Insurance Group, Zenith Insurance and 20th Century Insurance will each present $50,000 checks to help finance the yearlong contest. All three companies are headquartered in the same Warner Center building that houses the Cultural Foundation’s offices.

A foundation official said the donations, along with a number of promised gifts from other corporations, should provide the $270,000 needed to pay for the competition’s judges, technical advisers and prizes to finalists and winners.

The gifts also indicate a groundswell of support for the foundation’s plans, said Linda Kinnee, who oversees fund raising for the organization.

“Having those three gifts, that will help us get some of our downtown corporate gifts,” Kinnee said. “People like to be on a winning team.”

The businessmen and art patrons who make up the 7-year-old foundation have yet to raise any of the $50 million needed for construction. They have said fund raising will begin after they have the final plans.

As many as 1,000 artists and architects are expected to enter the competition, submitting their visions of the Arts Park’s buildings and performance areas. The competition, begun last month, is scheduled to produce a final plan next spring.