Pacific Symphony Wants Concert Hall in Anaheim

The city of Anaheim and the Pacific Symphony are talking about building a concert hall in Anaheim as a new home for the orchestra, Orange County’s most prominent musical ensemble.

“They contacted us,” said City Manager James D. Ruth, “expressing interest in relocating outside of Costa Mesa” where the 18-year-old, $6.5 million-a-year orchestra has been a resident company at the Orange County Performing Arts Center since the hall opened in 1986.

According to Louis Spisto, the orchestra’s executive director, Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly “is proposing to explore a public-private partnership. Discussions about the specifics have yet to begin in terms of how it would be funded and when.”

Performing Arts Center chairman Mark Johnson said Thursday that his board “values the PSO” but declined to say what, if anything, it might do to keep the orchestra from leaving.

Johnson also said a concert hall in Anaheim would have no effect on the center’s own plans to expand. The center, which operates the 3,000-seat multipurpose Segerstrom Hall near South Coast Plaza, has since its inception discussed the construction of a second, smaller hall.

Those plans picked up momentum last year after many years of dormancy when center officials unveiled models of auditorium configurations under consideration. Still, no decisions have been made on funding, location, timetable or, in fact, whether a second hall would be devoted exclusively to music.

“We obviously have had a long relationship with the center,” Spisto said Thursday. “But there has been no further discussion about building a concert hall there.”

“I think it’s clear the symphony . . . is ready to take its next step,” PSO board member Roger Johnson said Tuesday. “One of those next steps would be to operate from a dedicated, specific concert hall [of its own]. When that would happen, where that would happen, if that would happen, I don’t know. But I think eventually that is a very important step not just for the symphony but for Orange County.”

Spisto said the talks started “as a result of conversations the mayor had with Roger Johnson,” who is married to board president Janice Louis Spisto

Johnson. This month, Spisto said, the orchestra received a letter from Daly expressing an interest in pursuing discussions.

Daly declined to comment.

Ruth said the prospect of having the orchestra take up residence in Anaheim “would add a wonderful new dimension to our community, one that is lacking.” Among other major projects, the city is planning to expand the municipal Convention Center and improve streets for a Disneyland Resort expansion.

The orchestra’s board discussed Daly’s letter at a meeting Jan. 21 and has formed a committee to pursue talks with Anaheim, Spisto said.

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Center chairman Johnson said the orchestra “had informed us of what is happening with the city of Anaheim, and we will respect whatever they decide. We value the PSO. We certainly appreciate having them here at the center.”

But, he added, “For us to conjecture at this point in time in a bidding war [with Anaheim to keep the orchestra] would not be appropriate at all.”

Further, the center’s plans for expansion would go ahead “regardless of what the PSO does or does not do with the city of Anaheim. That cannot be a controlling factor in the decisions we make. While we appreciate the PSO very much, we must do what is best for the community as a whole.”

The cost of building a second hall at the center, which was built and operates without any governmental funding, has been estimated roughly in the neighborhood of $100 million. That and the expense of building maintenance has kept plans in abeyance, despite declarations by center officials that there is a demonstrated need for a second hall.

The Pacific Symphony’s strategic plan “calls for determination of a future venue within the next three years to see where we will be,” Spisto said. “And we believe that the time is fast approaching for that.”

He said the orchestra board feels it “needs to explore the opportunity to create a concert hall in Anaheim as well as the opportunity to create one at the center.”

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Is the regional arts market large enough to support two halls? “It’s premature to answer that,” center chairman Johnson said. Even if the orchestra were to move to its own hall in Anaheim, he said, “it’s like comparing apples and oranges. I don’t see an attempt to create a world-class arts center in what they’re discussing.”

Asked if the orchestra had a preference for the location of a concert hall, Spisto demurred.

“We want the best site,” he said. “That means, how will it be funded, built and controlled? That means, what size hall? Who maintains the hall? All of those things.”

All those questions will have to be answered first, he said, “and so far it’s too early to tell.”

Times staff writers Greg Hernandez, Zan Dubin and Ann Conway contributed to this report.