$65 Million Arts Center Opens in East L.A.
MONTEREY PARK, Calif. — In a section of Los Angeles that is far too often forgotten, a new $65 million performing and fine arts center is drawing new visitors.
School officials at East Los Angeles College, along with neighborhood and community leaders, hope the 160,000-square-foot performing arts center will bring with it world-class talent, international acclaim, and a refreshed sense of urban revival.
The recital hall is also planned to be a flagship venue and practice space for performing arts in East Los Angeles and its surrounding communities.
But before taking part in any performance, visitors must first take in the building’s unique designs, created by the international architectural firm, Arquitectonica, based in Miami, Fla.
“The straight exterior lines of the complex are hard to miss, but there’s only one true right angle to be found in any of the three buildings on site,” says Terry Bottorff, of Taisei Construction Corp., the contractor for the project. “As a whole, the complex’s series of buildings are supposed to [resemble] large pieces of granite pushed out of the earth. Everything is on angles and skewed structurally. The only things that are really straight in the buildings are the columns and brace frames.”
Bottorff added that the project has about twice the normal amount of structural steel members typically used in box buildings of this size.
Upon gaining entry to the building, visitors are greeted with long hallways broken up only by doors and a muted series of gray and off-white colors. The 77,078-square-foot building includes a 335-seat recital hall and rooms for painting, sculpture, printmaking, dance, ceramics, design and drawing studios, music and practice classrooms, and other functions.
The main recording studio, one of the largest rooms in the building, is wired to record performances in any of the buildings on the complex. To maintain natural sounds and control noise bleed, the music and practice rooms are outfitted with 400-pound doors and two layers of sheet rock on every wall.
Another building on the site will house the college’s famous Vincent Price Art Museum and its collection of more than 2,000 art pieces valued at $5 million. The 40,382-square-foot building, shaped like a trapezoid, includes 7,800 square feet of gallery storage space in its basement. The three-story structure is equipped with space for workshops, seven gallery spaces and a 120-seat lecture hall for art history.
The theater building is 58 feet high and L-shaped like the recital hall. With a handful of rooms inside for various uses, the building hugs the landscaped courtyard with 42,110 square feet of space. The building includes a 167-seat drama theater, 118-seat black box theater, costume workshop, rehearsal and make-up classrooms.
The project’s planners have applied for LEED Silver certification. Construction manager Taisei diverted nearly 90 percent of all construction waste for recycling, changed the irrigation system from sprinkler heads to a drip system, and installed energy-efficiency fixtures such as waterless urinals and occupant sensors to further reduce energy and potable water loss.
About half of all the steel used in the complex was recycled and all wood used on the job, including dance studios and stage floors, was certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Slightly more than a third of the complex’s electricity will come from renewable resources as part of a two-year renewable energy contract.
Bottorff said the firm is exceeding the requirement to acquire at least 20 percent of all materials within 500 miles of the construction site.
The East Los Angeles Performing and Fine Arts Center project is part of a $6 billion construction and modernization program that’s currently under way at all nine of the Los Angeles Community College District’s campuses. Funding for the project and other projects throughout the district was secured through the passage of Measure J in 2008.