Hall of sound

Alicia Robinson

Orange County Performing Arts Center officials like to hear the

phrase “on time” almost as much as “on budget” when talking about the

new Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall.

And both phrases have been flying around since the $200-million

project broke ground in February 2003. The new concert hall is about

13% complete and moving along well, said Kerry Madden, vice president

of theater operations and facilities for the performing arts center.

The 260,000-square-foot facility will include the 2,000-seat

concert hall, which will be the new home of the Pacific Symphony and

a 500-seat music theater as well as an education center and

restaurant.

Designed by architect Caesar Pelli, the building’s concert hall

entrance will be fronted by a curving glass wall, through which the

four tiers of the lobby and the 300 lights of an LED crystal

chandelier will be visible. The building face on the music theater

side is an imposing, modernistic block shape.

Things are running smoothly, in part because the center has been

working for several years with Fluor, the general construction

contractor for the project, Madden said.

“We’re always pleased to report that we’re on schedule and on

budget, which is an unusual situation for performing arts centers,”

Madden said.

At present, some interior columns are in place and exterior walls

are rising slowly, but otherwise the construction site on the Avenue

of the Arts is mainly a hole in the ground full of scaffolding,

cranes and other equipment.

One of the biggest challenges of the project was keeping things

dry, said Darrell Waters, concert hall project director for Fluor.

Workers had to lower the groundwater table at the site before they

could begin digging the foundation, Waters said. They use about 20

wells to pump out 700,000 gallons of water a day. The water is then

sent to tanks and filtered before being released into the storm sewer

system.

After drying out the site, workers poured the building’s

foundation and drove in 1,492 precast piles to support it. Fluor

timed the noisy pile-driving work to cause the least disturbance to

neighbors, Waters said.

“We worked with everybody through the pile-driving operation to

minimize the intrusions of that operation,” he said.

By the first week in June the building will begin to rise above

ground level, and by July passersby should notice it starting to take

shape, Waters said.

The project is scheduled to be finished in June 2006 with a

September 2006 opening planned.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

alicia.robinson@latimes.com.