The Segerstrom Center for the Arts on Thursday unveiled a $68 million plan to expand its programs and community outreach and rebuild its central plaza with green spaces, an outdoor stage and cafe.
The goal: to create a public square for Orange County.
“This is meant to be an attractive public gathering place with lots of amenities that all of our audiences will enjoy,” said Terrence W. Dwyer, Segerstrom Center’s president.
With free community events on the redesigned plaza and expanded outreach programs such as the current partnership with Children’s Hospital of Orange County, the initiative also aims to reach groups that haven’t traditionally come to the Segerstrom Center, he said.
The Costa Mesa plaza will be a center for the entire county, Dwyer said. “We want to create a public gathering space that’s … attractive to all the diverse communities of Orange County.”
John Ginger, chairman of the Segerstrom Center’s board, said the spark for the three-part plan began two years ago, as board members considered how audiences would change in the future.
“We envision this to be something like a like a town square that you would see in Italy,” where people gather to talk, listen to music, eat and drink and play games, he said.
“We feel that the more people we can introduce to the Segerstrom Center – they’re our audiences of the future,” Ginger said.
A NEW PLAZA
Early in 2016, work will begin on the central plaza, between Segerstrom Hall and Judy Morr Theater on one side and the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall and Samueli Theater on the other. The plaza will be renamed the Julianne and George Argyros Plaza, after the patrons who have given the largest donation so far to the project, $13.5 million.
Plans call for an outdoor stage along the south side of Segerstrom Hall for performances and community events that could range from free concerts to college graduation ceremonies.
Currently, the plaza is the spot for about half a dozen free events a year, including popular outdoor movie screenings, Dwyer said. With the new plaza, the center plans to host outdoor events at least 30 weekends a year, including a jazz series and performances by Southern California bands. Details of the programming have yet to be worked out, Ginger said. The plaza work is expected to be finished by fall 2016.
Around the plaza stage will be three separate, shaded green spaces with flowering pear trees, seating and walking paths. A circular grand staircase will link Segerstrom Hall’s mezzanine level to the plaza level below and end at a cafe with outdoor seating.
DANCE CENTER AND COMMUNITY OUTREACH
The second part of the initiative is the Center for Dance and Innovation, to be housed in a renovated Judy Morr Theater and upgraded studios. The theater will get a more visible and accessible garden-like entrance featuring a curved ramp around a large tree, possibly a Jacaranda, leading to the entrance and a small outdoor balcony where receptions could take place. The Center will include the Segerstrom Center’s American Ballet Theatre William J. Gillespie School, set to start its first full-curriculum, 36-week program in September, and eventually adult dance classes for other genres, Dwyer said.
Work on the Center for Dance and Innovation also is expected to be completed in the fall of 2016.
The third part of the initiative is what the Segerstrom Center is calling the Center Without Boundaries, an expansion of its existing community outreach efforts.
Jason Holland, previously the Segerstrom Center’s director of education, will direct many of the center’s programs as vice president of community engagement. These will be programs taking place off the Segerstrom Center campus, such as visits by storytellers and musicians to CHOC or dance classes for families at Camp Pendleton.
A MORE INVITING SPACE
Michael Maltzan is the architect of the redesigned plaza and the Center for Dance and Innovation. His Los Angeles firm has worked on several other public projects at cultural centers, including the central courtyard and cafe at UCLA’s Hammer Museum.
“The plaza very often feels too large and creates a space that I don’t think has the same level of accessibility and vibrancy that the insides of the buildings do,” Maltzan said.
The outdoor stage at Julianne and George Argyros Plaza will break up the wide-open space and create a more “human scale,” Maltzan said, while the green spaces and trees will give shade and mitigate the effect of afternoon winds.
The plaza will be a multipurpose space allowing for big events on the community stage while providing smaller green spaces where visitors could come with their children or sit on the grass with a cup of coffee. The cafe is “meant to expand the life of the plaza,” Maltzan said, hopefully attracting people for lunch and encouraging them to linger after evening performances.
So far, the Segerstrom Center has raised $42 million of the $68 million goal of its fundraising effort, the “Next Act Campaign.” The fundraising goal should be reached by the time construction is finished, Ginger said.
Dwyer said the cost of new construction and new programs under the initiative is approximately $14 million, and the remaining $54 million will pay for existing spaces, including the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall.
The concert hall opened in 2006, and the Segerstrom Center still has debt on that construction. When the Next Act Campaign’s goal is met, the Segerstrom Center will have paid for both the new initiatives and debt left over from construction of existing spaces, including the concert hall, Dwyer said.
Ginger and his wife Toni Ginger, Richard C. and Virginia A. Hunsaker, William J. Gillespie, Cindy and Steve Fry and an anonymous donor make up the next biggest contributors to the initiative.
The Orange County Museum of Art, currently tucked into a somewhat out-of-the-way corner near Fashion Island, has plans to eventually move to the Segerstrom Center. Segerstrom’s plans won’t affect that, Dwyer said. OCMA still has a reserved spot on the Segerstrom campus, to the east of the concert hall and abutting the redesigned plaza.
NEW AUDIENCES
Both Ginger and Dwyer noted the changes in Orange County demographics over the last few decades and said the Segerstrom Center is trying to draw newcomers.
“We hope to attract, definitely, a broader-based section of the county,” including those who will take advantage of free or low-cost programs, Ginger said.
“We would like the different ethnic groups to become involved in programming” at the center, he said. “Our plan is to include everybody.”
Dwyer agreed: “Sometimes there’s economic barriers to younger people” to attend arts programs. “Some communities might have less exposure or less of a tradition of attending the Western arts or Broadway.
“Every single person we engage in this way is part of our audience. Our audience is not just the people that buy tickets.”
