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the cost of culture
Sonoma state's $97.7 million Green Music Center is among a growing--and expensive--trend of university-sponsored public arts centers
March 19, 2007
By BOB NORBERG
For $100 million, Sonoma County is widening the freeway from Santa Rosa to Windsor, Stanford rebuilt its football stadium and Sonoma State University is building a landmark performing arts center.
Sonoma State is joining other public universities in California in building theater complexes that offer much to the community and educational opportunities for students - at a cost that rivals high-profile sports stadiums and arenas.
The major centers all have the name of a major contributor attached and also involve millions of public dollars.
Sonoma State's performing arts complex will bear the name of telecommunications pioneer Don Green and his wife, Maureen, who started the fund-raising effort with a $10 million donation. So far, $42.8 million in donations has been raised.
Its design imitates Tanglewood, the world-famous Lennox, Mass., concert hall, with massive doors opening the interior of beech, cedar, redwood and mapleand a gently sloping, lawn seating area.
The total cost is $97.7 million, which includes about $25 million in state funding for the educational portion of the project.
"I think it is a defining facility for this university," said SSU President Ruben Armiñana.
Performing arts centers are increasingly becoming campus mainstays, encouraged by the CSU and UC systems as a way for universities to strengthen community ties as well as serve students.
The $53.5 million Mondavi Center opened in 2002 at UC Davis, its way paved by a $10 million donation from wine mogul Robert Mondavi, and its programs draw heavily from Sacramento and the surrounding Central Valley.
"Before the Mondavi Center, there were classical music concerts, but not the Cleveland Orchestra," spokesman Joe Martin said. "The Mondavi Center raised the bar. That is true also with jazz and dance and the other things we do."
Cal State Northridge will begin construction this fall on a $100 million facility - with a 1,700-seat concert hall, 200-seat theater, and classrooms and other performance spaces - that is expected to draw from the entire San Fernando Valley.
The university has a $5 million donation from record producer Mike Curb, will begin a campaign to raise $39 million more, and has received $56 million in state funding.
"This is the university's No.1 priority ... It will become a central and key part of the university's connection with our community," spokesman John Chandler said. "It will allow us to stage and host performances that we can't do now and also don't have a place in our surrounding community. It's a big deal."
San Francisco State too has a performing arts center and arts educational facility in the planning stages, seeded by a $10 million donation from Manny Mashouf, an alumni and founder of the Bebe women's apparel store chain. It is expected to cost $150 million.
"For us, creative arts has long been a strong academic program, but the building is one of the oldest on campus," spokesman Matt Itelson said.
At Sonoma State, construction is well under way, and its performing arts center is on schedule for completion by the fall of 2008.
"It is going to be the gem of the Cal State system, no question about that, and a great regional asset for Sonoma County," said Steve Donley, Rohnert Park's city manager. "It makes Sonoma even more of a destination. It offers a cultural attraction that is only available in a few venues around the world."
The project has not been without challenges, including escalating costs as it expanded in scope and complexity.
It was envisioned a decade ago as Tanglewood West, a $47 million, 1,400-seat concert hall and home to the Santa Rosa Symphony.
Since then, a wing was added to the concert hall for a campus-run restaurant and a Santa Rosa Symphony League "founders room." A separate building will have a 250-seat recital hall, with a wing for classrooms and faculty offices.
By last September, boosted by a run-up in construction costs between 2002 and 2004 that CSU set at 76 percent, the total project cost at Sonoma State rose to $97.7 million
To get the price down to $87.7 million to be able to start construction, SSU deferred $10 million in expenditures, including such things as concert hall chairs, the lobby floor and interior, restrooms, musicians' rooms, walkways and the recital hall interior and furnishings.
To be able to open the concert and recital halls, however, at least $8 million of those deferred items need to be funded and completed.
SSU has started a $22 million fund-raising campaign to raise the $10 million needed to finish the project and to repay a private loan guarantee.
"The project is going to go; we will move forward," said Bucky Peterson, the university's vice president of development, who is leading the campaign. Peterson said it was daunting, but: "We got a shot at it."
The campaign includes selling the naming rights from everything from the individual chairs, $5,000 each, to the concert hall itself, $7 million.
The university so far has raised $42.8 million in private donations.
As the money comes in, the items that were taken out will be put back in, said Christopher Dinno, the university's senior director of design and construction.
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