Plans for Douglas Theatre Adjusted

Cost issues have forced the Center Theatre Group to drop plans for a 100-seat stage at its proposed Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. The smaller space was to have supplemented the facility’s primary 320-seat auditorium.

The project, announced earlier this year, involves the renovation of the interior of the Culver Theater, a cinema that was opened in 1947, and the original plan called for the existing structure’s balcony area to be used as a smaller stage. But architects discovered that the floor of the balcony could not be lowered enough to provide an adequate space for the theater without extensive structural changes that “would have been out of anyone’s financial ballpark,” said Charles Dillingham, CTG’s managing director.

As it is, the estimated cost of the project, which will provide facilities for play development and youth programming, has risen to $10.9 million from the original estimate of $7 million to $8 million. Dillingham said the architects’ recently completed schematic plans allowed a more accurate cost estimate. “It often occurs that early estimates are not correct,” he said. About $7 million of the total has been raised, including $2.5 million from actor Kirk Douglas and his wife, Anne.

Under the latest plans, Dillingham said, the balcony area will be used as a rehearsal space and classroom after the scheduled 2004 opening of the facility. Public programs that would have been held in the 100-seat space will be held in the 320-seat theater instead. Meanwhile, Center Theatre Group and the Culver City Redevelopment Agency are planning to use the 99-seat Ivy Substation, a few blocks from the Culver Theatre, as the site of such activities as the Mark Taper Forum’s New Work Festival until the Douglas Theatre opens.

CTG will lease the Ivy Substation from October 2002 until June 2004 and will spend $186,000 to upgrade the sound, lighting and seating, plus monthly costs estimated at $8,000 to $9,000 for utilities and maintenance, said Steven Rose, a Culver City Redevelopment Agency board member and City Council member. The redevelopment agency will spend $211,000 for structural modifications at the Ivy. The agency also will occupy the Ivy with local activities, not related to CTG, in July and August 2003. Dillingham said final details on the Ivy deal are expected to be ironed out later this summer.