From the ground up

Amy R. Spurgeon

ORANGE COAST COLLEGE -- When the idea for a new multimillion-dollar arts

center first came up at OCC, Ronald Reagan was in the White House, gas

was going for about 80 cents a gallon and no one had ever heard of the

Internet.

Now, nearly two decades later, college officials are finally preparing to

break ground on the $15-million facility this summer.

“I didn’t have gray hair when I signed on to this project,” said

architect Steven Ehrlich of Steven Ehrlich Architects in Culver City.

District planners first approached Ted Baker, then dean of fine arts at

OCC, in the early 1980s about the condition of the college’s six arts

buildings. The ground supporting the 40-year-old structures had shifted

and swelled over the years, causing damage to doors, walls, plumbing and

electrical systems.

“All schools suffer from buildings that went up in the 1940s and 1950s,”

said Baker, who is now retired. “We have tougher laws now.”

Baker said builders in those days were concerned with short-term goals

and looked for ways to cut costs. By 1989, OCC faculty, Coast Community

College District board members, Ehrlich and the state decided that

erecting a single new building instead of repairing the old ones would be

fiscally responsible.

In 1990, OCC made public its plans for the new $11-million Arts Center,

scheduled to welcome students in the fall of 1995.

However, cutbacks in state funding for education determined otherwise,

Baker said, and plans for the Arts Center were shelved indefinitely.

“It takes a long time for things to happen sometimes,” said OCC’s

foundation director, Douglas Bennett. “It takes people to be tenacious

and hang in there.”That’s what Ehrlich and Baker did.

“Patience is a virtue. You have to maintain patience and always hope for

enthusiasm,” Ehrlich said. “I always had hope that we’d get it done.”

By the late 1990s, the state had recovered financially and the center was

given a green light. Even then, however, mandated earthquake retrofitting

of other buildings took precedence over the project.

It was another setback for Baker, who had passionately championed the

project’s completion. But at least, this time, the end was near.

“It is important for students to have facilities to learn about the

arts,” Baker said. “The reason for the arts has to do with the human

spirit. They are an important part of our lives.”

The three-story, 60,000-square-foot building will house disciplines such

as computer graphics, photography and film and video production. OCC is

believed to have one of the largest community college fine arts

departments in the state, Baker said.

The use of light and the concept of communication played major roles in

the building’s design, said Ehrlich, whose architectural credits include

the DreamWorks SKG Animation Studios in Hollywood and the Sony Music

Entertainment campus in Santa Monica.

“This building makes two main statements: the importance of the arts to

the community and the ability of people who visit the building to be

influenced by the arts,” he said.

Construction is scheduled to be completed in 2002.

Plans also call for the Arts Center to be accompanied by a $2-million

arts pavilion. The 8,500-square-foot facility, also designed by Ehrlich,

will house the college’s art gallery, a new young artists gallery and a

cafe.

Because the state will not provide the necessary funds, money is being

raised to pay for the pavilion’s construction.