Disney Concert Hall: Needed by Downtown, by All of L.A. : Frank Gehry-designed building could help revitalize area

Ironic” is the word that perhaps best characterizes the thus-far short but complicated life of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. When plans for the project were unveiled in 1987, many considered a new concert hall one of the last things Los Angeles needed. But now, with the future of the ambitious Frank Gehry-designed building in limbo, many of the same skeptics view construction of the Disney Hall, adjacent to the Music Center, as essential to the revival of downtown Los Angeles and, in some ways, to the long-term economic health of the city. It is indeed.

This change in perspective has as much to do with what has happened--or not happened--to downtown in the intervening nine years as with a new appreciation for the proposed home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. And what’s happened is that downtown has continued to struggle economically, losing ground to surrounding suburban centers. The merger of the First Interstate and Wells Fargo banks, major downtown forces that employed thousands from throughout the Los Angeles area, didn’t help. Fewer business tenants mean fewer retail customers for downtown shops and restaurants. But more important, the center of any major city is a powerful symbol for the vitality of that region. Downtown Los Angeles must beckon the visitor, the potential investor, the potential employer. Thus the economic well-being of downtown Los Angeles is of broad importance to anyone interested in the long-term well-being of the entire L.A. area.

The controversy over construction of Disney Hall mirrors the problems that continue to plague the Civic Center and embodies part of their solution. Down-sized companies say they don’t have the philanthropic budgets they once had to support the arts and, specifically, the grand arts pavilions. Yet such corporate support is required now more than ever to initiate development needed to fuel economic growth.

Disney Hall has become one of downtown’s best hopes. The project began with a gift of $50 million from Lillian B. Disney, widow of entertainment giant Walt Disney. Her subsequent gifts and accumulated interest now total $103 million. Once that sum was considered enough to build a 2,500-seat hall with Gehry’s soaring exterior design and state-of-the-art acoustics. Yet spiraling estimates have more than doubled the original construction cost figure. Lack of close management over the many aspects of the big project contributed mightily to the overruns. The bottom line is that work on the hall has now been all but halted pending commitments for $150 million more.

In recent months, the county, which owns the hall’s Grand Avenue site, has begun to impose needed direction and rigor on the project. It has completed the publicly funded parking garage it promised to serve the hall and other planned projects. And county officials have received from Disney Concert Hall representatives the detailed plan they requested for raising the additional $150 million.

The next milestone is June 1997, when backers must come up with $50 million toward that goal. If funding of this magnitude is forthcoming, it will almost certainly have to be from corporations, civic leaders, entertainment figures and business executives. The next step is up to those who are to be this city’s leaders.