The $6.5 million that West Hollywood City Council approved for replacing the former Coast Playhouse with a brand new city-owned performance space doesn’t come close to what planners are now predicting the project will cost to finish: between $15 million and $17.8 million.
Designed by Perkins & Will, the City Playhouse (its temporary name) will be a two-story structure housing a 99-seat theater, civic space and events center across 7,700 square feet at its 8325 Santa Monica Blvd. location. It will have a “state-of-the-art performance space,” as well as a multi-purpose rehearsal space, lobby and a landscaped garden.
Last year, the firm began reworking the original plans with input from community outreach sessions and the official Playhouse Design Steering Committee, composed of various city commissioners and boardmembers. Their grandiose new vision of the playhouse comes with much bigger price tags.
Originally, the city planned to leave the purchase and installation of the audio-visual equipment, lighting and most of the furniture in the hands of whoever was awarded the contract to operate the theater. But in order to “provide an equitable and accessible facility for groups with varying financial capacities,” the planners decided the city should take on that part of the project, too.
The planners have also opted for a larger, proscenium-style theater rather than the simple black box theater conceived in the beginning. A dedicated service elevator, a larger lobby, changing rooms, a green room, a playhouse office and gender-neutral restroom facilities were also added to the playhouse designs, which might include a digital outdoor marquee and signage as well.
The staff report reads:
The current estimated construction budget, which includes the building, garden, right-of-way improvements, FF&E, AV, theater lighting and rigging, escalation factors, contingencies, and contracting fees ranges between $11.2 million and $13.8 million. One major variable in this cost range is the scope and quality of AV and lighting equipment that will be provided by the City, which will be refined in the next phase. Total project costs, including the construction budget above, as well as fees for design, engineering, surveying, construction management, and other soft costs such as inspections, a construction contingency reserve, and utility coordination, are projected to range between $15 million and $17.8 million.
Construction is tentatively scheduled to begin in March 2025.
This would help keep West Hollywood a destination for arts and culture instead of just a sea of bars and high-end hotels. I’m for it. It will serve the community for decades to come.
The city should just wait and focus on redeveloping the entire block. Imagine how much life a mixed use building would bring to the area. The theater could be raised a level to make way for street level retail (even preserving the existing tenants). We could then add more meeting spaces, an arts gallery, and much needed meeting spaces. There would also be room to add underground parking with the larger footprint.
TBH, I think these plans may be a strategic ruse to get a better position in negotiations for the part of the block they have yet to obtain.
God forbid we use some Rainbow crosswalk money for adult concepts.
This is a wonderful public works project. And I stress public. The arts bring people together, just like a park and pickle ball courts do. The initial cost estimate was naive and didn’t include Union Labor (indeed Weho is a union town, like it or not) nor adjustments for inflation. Naysayers be damned, let’s get started on the City Playhouse.
Build it, we are a creative city and need this type of creative space. All naysayers should move to Henderson.
Doesn’t Heart have some of this A/V equipment in its space? Even though no one sees plays anymore, this would be a much better adaptation. Perkins + Will is so has been anyway, we don’t want them to design anything.
great
sad
It’s outrageous that hard earned tax dollars are used for this. If you want this “playhouse” then fund it with private money.
We did that with the library. Abbe Land solicited funds in honor of John Heilman’s birthday. All of the donors have their names near the entrance. The ones with the largest typeface are coincidentally the ones with the most expensive projects before the City at the time.
Why isn’t there a more close audit of what the money is going for? Too often, there are huge expenses going to private, for profit “contractors“ of city services and taking city money, which means our taxpayer money, and giving it to private for profit entities That are charging enormous amounts of money to line their own pockets, and then very very likely giving kickbacks to the city council members and other city government officials who steer the business, and the related exorbitant funds, right their way. There is no accountability of how much these people are paid, or overpaid,… Read more »
That is a lot of money for just 99 seats. If they are going to spend that kind of money it should be for something larger and for something that could be used for other purposes. 99 seats is ridiculous.
“Equity Waiver”, Morty. Equity Waiver.
OK, then build a building which also happens to include a space for a 99 seat theatre to stay within the law. To spend almost $18 mil on a theatre is ridiculous. The building needs to be multi-purpose or else forget it. I don’t want my tax dollars paying to build an $18 million dollar theatre.
They should put the whole thing on hold until they decide what to do with the block- they already own the building containing Joey’s & Crossroads Trading and it’s no secret they want the one housing Basix and Marix.