No Tenant Seen for Cultural Center

PORT HUENEME —  City officials decided Wednesday to continue searching for a tenant for its mothballed municipal cultural center, despite a discouraging report that proved unable to identify one.

Eight groups ranging from a dinner theater operator to a television production company have expressed preliminary interest in running the performing arts center.

In addition, officials will also explore turning the Dorrill B. Wright Cultural Center into a museum run jointly by the city and the county’s two naval bases, Community Development Director Tom Figg said before Wednesday’s City Council meeting.

“It’s worth investing more time until we get the right answers,” he said. “We knew there wasn’t a magic solution.”

Built during the 1980s, the 564-seat center has been virtually unused since a municipal budget crunch forced its closure in 1993.

The $10,000 report, prepared by Burlingame-based consultants, estimates that the center needs about $250,000 worth of renovations. In addition, the center required a city subsidy of about $225,000 in its last year of operation.

Those figures, combined with the city’s relative isolation and mixed opinions of the center’s acoustics and seating comfort, have dissuaded many potential tenants from seriously considering the center, the report said.

“Attracting any major private user to the center will be difficult,” the report concludes.

But without one, reopening the center could prove financially impractical. There is limited usage potential from local art groups--perhaps as little as 10 to 12 days a year, the report said.

Furthermore, the report rejects any possibility of operating the center in concert with the Oxnard Civic Auditorium. Officials in the neighboring city showed no interest in the idea, the report said.

Instead, officials will try to market the site to the eight unidentified groups that have shown at least a degree of interest and also explore turning the site into a museum.

One of the eight, headed by former mayor and center namesake Dorrill B. Wright, said a nonprofit arts foundation he formed two years ago is putting together a business plan to manage the facility.

“We think we can put together a business plan that would show over the long haul that it would not be a burden to the city,” Wright told the council. “If you can give us a window to operate with, I believe we can bring this about and accommodate the other [potential] users.”

City officials aren’t surprised by the report’s conclusions.

“It’s a hard sell,” Figg said.