Huge Performing Arts Center Proposed for Santa Ana : Construction: The 5,500-seat theater would be county’s largest. Developers also envision 180-room hotel to be built later.

SANTA ANA —  A development firm has proposed building a hotel and performing arts center--the biggest in Orange County--next to the MainPlace mall in north Santa Ana, city officials said Monday.

With 5,500 seats, the enclosed theater would hold about 2,500 more people than the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. Developers Moss & Co. of Santa Monica also want to build an 8- to 10-story, 180-room hotel on the 3.47-acre site, but not for an additional seven to 10 years.

“There’s no market for a hotel there now,” said John Killen, agent for Moss & Co. He said he could not estimate how much the total project would cost because plans are still in flux.

City officials said the developers haven’t decided what kind of events to hold at the proposed center because a management company hasn’t been chosen yet.

According to planners, the project, proposed near the intersection of Main Street and Owens Drive, is in a preliminary stage. At a Feb. 10 meeting, area residents and property owners may suggest problems that should be studied in an environmental impact report.

Development plans probably won’t go before the City Council for up to a year.

Tanya Thomas, MainPlace/Santa Ana general manager, opposes the existing plan, fearing that people attending concerts will park cars in spaces belonging to the mall.

Developers propose a 392-car parking structure at the center, and plans call for most of the concert patrons to park at office buildings away from the site and take shuttles to the theater.

However, said Thomas, “we believe theatergoers are going to park wherever it’s most convenient.”

Killen said the developers have an alternate plan that may include buying other nearby property to provide parking within walking distance of the venue.

Robyn Uptegraff, executive director of the city’s Planning and Building Department, called the project concept “exciting” but said MainPlace is a “cornerstone of the city’s commercial activity (and) we want to ensure no project negatively impacts it.”

Main Street north of MainPlace is being widened to accommodate more traffic, Uptegraff said, but officials who planned the widening only took into account traffic patterns from current and future MainPlace stores and a project planned on the eastern side of Main--not the concert hall and hotel.

Moss & Co. representatives have met with neighborhood associations to discuss concerns.

“The development could be of huge benefit to the area,” said John Zarian, president of the West Floral Park Neighborhood Assn. “But everyone wants to go into it with their eyes open.”

A concert hall would be the latest addition to Santa Ana’s effort to become the county’s urban and cultural hub.

The city’s museum district, with the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art and a planned children’s museum at its heart, lies to the south. And last year, the City Council approved the Main Street Concourse, a $500-million development proposed on the eastern side of Main Street.

That project would include the county’s tallest office tower, townhomes, stores, a live theater and movie theater. Construction has not begun yet.

Santa Ana’s proposed concert hall may feel stiff competition from other facilities. Whether the area can support another performing arts venue depends on what’s presented there, said Victor Gotesman, general manager of the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.

The new hall could succeed if it stages programs that don’t duplicate presentations at other nearby sites, said Gotesman.

“This is a vast marketplace and there are certainly enough people to support the venues here now, if everyone develops their own particular niche,” Gotesman said. “It’s certainly worth a shot if the programming were developed carefully in conjunction with what the community needs were.”

The Cerritos center’s annual operating budget is about $7.8 million, and it receives about $2 million of that from the city of Cerritos.

Killen said Moss & Co. have not asked the city to subsidize their proposed hall.