(Aug. 29, 2015) -- Ideas to make art the cutting edge of the new Long Beach Civic Center marked discussion at Thursday's meeting between the Arts Council for Long Beach, the wider creative community and the project's developers.

Jeff Fullerton, project director for Plenary Edgemoor Civic Partners, said plans call for integrating art, culture and the city's history into the new City Hall, Library and Lincoln Park, and to "reconnect the site to the local community."

A commercial pathway through Lincoln Park that would offer amenities -- but not large-scale retail -- to visitors and workers would "make a wonderful artist space," Fullerton said. "We'd love to see galleries, crafts..."

"We've got to figure out how to make it happen," Fullerton told several dozen people who attended the presentation at Made, a store on Pine Ave. that features hand-made goods.

The mention of galleries hit a nerve among some in attendance.

[Scroll down for further.]

"People in Long Beach don't buy art," one woman said, then immediately made the point by asking Fullerton how many pieces of art are hanging on his wall.

"Absolutely none," he admitted.

Later, he said, "What I'm hearing is, it's tough to make a living selling art in Long Beach and it's tough to make the rent."

Artists working in the East Village earn "in the single digits of pennies," one man said. The rest of us, another said, "occasionally make a sale." The project should display "the best art that Long Beach can present," artist Jim Coke said, suggesting a designated space to display some of the stored collections of the city's museums.

As people come to the Civic Center to do business, he said, the art will send a message that "this is from here and it's great."

"This gives the impression that art is important," Coke said. "We've never had that impression."

But a dedicated funding stream is key, and without it, some of the best ideas just won't fly, several said.

Artist Walter Focht suggested that artists compete to supply various park amenities, such as benches, with the winner paid to produce them. Other suggestions included an annual city-sponsored art exhibition and fair that some communities use to forge an identity and lure visitors.

[Scroll down for further.]

Advertisement

Advertisement

Fullerton brushed aside concerns that the arts community is not getting in on he ground floor of planning. These aspects of the project, he said, will be installed in the time frame of 2018-19.

Overall the park will include a dog park, children's playground, areas that can be used for yoga and where people can play chess, checkers and Frisbee. There will be a stage for performing arts that can accommodate evens attracting up to 10,000 attendees.

"The more people coming to Lincoln Park, the happier we are," Fullerton said, adding that the mission is to "make it local and comfortable."

The firm has hosted more than 75 community meetings to gather suggestions. "It's not something that we can do alone."

[Scroll down for further]

Advertisement

Advertisement

[LBREPORT.com publisher's text] In a December 2014 vote (8-0, 4th dist. vacant), the City Council chose Plenary Edgemoor as its preferred proposer to finance, design, build, operate and maintain a new Civic Center under a "Public Private Partnership" transaction in which the City would pay the firm annual sums increased each year by CPI. The Council's December 2014 vote authorized the City to enter into an Exclusive Negotiating Agreement with Plenary Edgemoor during which final terms of the Civic Center transaction are now being negotiated and will ultimately be brought to the Council for approval.

City management initially indicated that City payments to the private Civic Center developer/operator would last for roughly 30 years...but the City payment period could now extend under terms now being negotiated for to up to 50 years under state legislation sought by the City and recently approved in Sacramento (LBREPORT.com coverage here.)

In addition to the annual City payments, Plenary Edgemoor would also receive a portion of current Civic Center land for its private developmental use. The firm has indicated its current plans envision constructing a 30+ story building towering over a new LB City Hall and a new Port of Long Beach HQ. The new Civic Center would also demolish LB's current Main Library and replace it with a smaller square footage facility.

In 2007, city management acknowledged seismic issues with LB's current City Hall but declined to seek bids to retrofit the building (constructed in the late 1970s.) Instead, city management called LB City Hall (which won architectural awards at its opening) "functionally obsolete" and management offered the Council an internally estimated retrofit cost significantly higher than a Long Beach architect (experienced in adaptive reuse) and a Columbia University graduate student thesis independently estimated.

The Council declined to invite expert witness presentations independent of city management on the retrofit issue before pursuing the Civic Center rebuild. Some Councilmembers noted that a seismic retrofit would likely require a vote of the people to approve bond financing (with fixed annual costs) for the work, while the Public Private Partnership Civic Center transaction (with annually increasing costs) can be pursued without a public vote.

Advertisement

Advertisement

On August 18, 2015 city management advised the City Council's Budget Oversight Committee in a publicly agendized memo (cc'd to the Mayor and Councilmembers) that if Sacramento legislation sought by the City doesn't pass in the coming weeks, the Civic Center transaction might require the City to have in place a plan to pay roughly $14.5 million to demolish the former LB courthouse. The demolition cost is roughly $11.5-$12.5 million more than management originally assumed, having initially assumed a roughly $2-3 million demolition cost that it sought to cover using former Redevelopment funds, which Sacramento ultimately declined to approve.

City management's recommendation now is to spend $3 million in a FY15 taxpayer surplus and incur a 10 year debt-bond (which city management says can be done without a public ballot vote) that would incur an annual taxpayer debt service cost of roughly $1.3 million per year for ten years. That issue will ultimately come to the full City Council, likely in the coming weeks. (LBREPORT.com coverage here.)