Redesign for fairgrounds in the works

Andrew Glazer

FAIRGROUNDS -- Planners this week embarked on a two-year mission to

figure out what to do with a silent amphitheater, crumbling buildings and

lots of space.

Officials from the Orange County Fair and Exposition Center enlisted

Irvine-based LSA Associates, Inc. to come up with the first new plan for

the fairgrounds in 12 years.

Becky Bailey-Findley, the general manager of the fairgrounds, said the

fair board is paying the consultants $600,000 to develop a detailed

proposal for new programs, facilities and a cost estimate for the

grounds.

“Our old plan just doesn’t fit anymore,” she said. “Things have changed

since then.”

The most significant change is that the fairgrounds in 1993 bought the

Pacific Amphitheatre from the Nederlander Organization, a Los

Angeles-based concert booker.

But soon after the purchase, residents near the venue filed lawsuits over

excessive concert noise, forcing fairgrounds officials to stop the music.

“We’re going to invest a lot of time in figuring out what to do with the

amphitheater,” said project manager Frank Haselton, of LSA Associates.

“It takes up a lot of space. Who knows what we’ll come up with.”

Haselton said consultants also will decide whether to recommend the fair

board tear down or renovate the many dilapidated buildings on the site.

Haselton and his team of six consultants will hold meetings with the

organizations and residents near the fairgrounds because they will be

directly affected by the upcoming changes.

The consultants and fairgrounds officials also will hold public workshops

to hear what residents would like for the fairgrounds.

Bailey-Findley said people interested in helping redesign the fairgrounds

should attend monthly board meetings, which are open to the public. The

fair board meets at 10 a.m. on the fourth Thursday of every month at

Memorial Garden, 88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa.