Stanford to build new 900-seat concert hall

The city of PA and the city council needs to look into this. Can Stanford just go ahead and build it? Don;t they need the okay of the city council? Doesn’t the Planning and Transportation Committee need to nit pick it? What about input of the citizens of PA?
What about if this creates too much traffic? What about noise??
The PA process needs to be invoked before this is built.

Mike,

Yoriko doesn’t like Stanford. Why are you surprised that there is no cooperation.

BTW, when you say “could have been built across from the Mall”, where are you talking about (El Camino Park, or next to Hoover Pavilion, or some other spot?).

Stanford has a ways to go to catch up with Berkeley’s Cal Performances. It would,however, be well worth the effort for everyone. See http://www.calperfs.berkeley.edu/ / Marvin and Alison Lee

“The City of Palo Alto has no funds to partner with Stanford on a performing arts center. That a world-class facility will be built a few blocks away from where it might otherwise have been constructed is hardly “sad” or indicative of a lapse on anyone’s part.”

[Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

Read Stanford President John Hennessey’s ststement in the following link – the part where he says “making the center a joint venture with Palo Alto “probably exceed the benefits.”” There’s a lot implied in that statement.
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/2005/2005_06_17.perform17ja.shtml

We have a small core of people around here who think Palo Alto is their personal bonsai tree. They want to keep this place alive, but pruned compulsively to their exact liking. That isn’t going to fly around here any more, not if most of the (many) people I talk to have a say (who are sick and tired of a small interest groups robbing this city, and their future, of opportunity)

Perhaps Ms. White didn’t notice that the Bings contributed $50M for the center.

Given that Theatreworks was in on the initial set of informal talks (check out the Theatreworks Board for a stellar set of fundraising names [who have a network), one can EASILY imagine a project that would have sat across from the MALL and added prestige and OPPORTUNITY to Palo Alto.

Ms. White doesn’t think that “being a few blocks away (it’s more like almost a mile) will make a difference. Tell me, Ms. White, how many people flock from the Cantor Art Museum to downtown? Imagin a Performing Arts Center practically IN our downtown, and what that would have meant. [Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

I am not one to jump on Frank Benest, but if there is one OBVIOUS failing that his administration has had – FULLY backed by this and prior Councils – it’s the failure to aggressively develop substantial public/private partnenrships for our city. [Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

Imagine what a MAGNET a performing arts center would have been on the fields across from Stanford Mall.

Imagine? That word is not in the vocabulary of some. It’s been permanently displaced by the word “can’t”.

So, Palo Alto will now have access to a performing arts center that is not AT ALL identified with our city, has nothing whatsoever – or very little – to do with local cultural opportunities that a a joint partnership would have brought, and very likely lost the opportunity to bring in a theatre company that has sent first runs to broadway, and is making fast headway as possibly the very best professional theatre company in Northern California (including ACT, in San Francisco).

It’s an opportunity lost, Ms. White, just like so many other opportunities that have been frittered away because people of attenuated vision have had too much influence in our city, for too long.

Sadly, I don’t see a near-term end to this kind of thinking in our city. Too many of our city council candidates (Greg Schmid comes to mind) want to retro-build our city into the mold of a nostalgic daydream. That’s what’s sad.

I wish Stanford well, at least they know what they want, and know what they have to do to get it. Palo Alto needs to take a course in the latter.

yes, that was one of the proposed, and favored, locations

The Eucalyptus grove was another potential location…

Mike,

You can dream on all you want. There is NO WAY playing fields are going be sacrificed for your “think big” dreams. The votes are not there…not even close. However, if you want to consider putting playing fields on top of (or underneath or in dual use parking lots), you may get somewhere. Berkely does some of this.

Palo Alto will certainly benefit from the new theatre, as we usually do whenever Stanford does something cool. From a purely selfish viewpoint, it will increase my property values! Damn, I love Stanford!

Is there some reason the Palo Alto on line will not publish the web site for Cal Performances which we included in our email. The comparison with Stanford / Palo Alto presentation arts is striking if one visits their web site. http://www.calperfs.berkeley.edu/presents/

Clearly Stanford and Palo Alto have their work cut out to match the high standard set by Cal Performances.

Marvin Lee

Combining a performce center proposition with playing fields – that’s another one of those ‘only in Palo Alto’ inane ideas.

Mike,

Hmmm…some mystery!

Let me guess…playing fields for Palo Alto on Stanford land in a mutual exchange of common interests? Since the Mayfield deal followed that model, but is a done deal, is there another one in the pipeline? Actually, it makes sense.

According to Wikipedia, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles,
upon completion in 2003, had cost an estimated $274 million. The Hall seats about 2,300 people and has underground parking, which was supposed to cost about $90M. It would seem that a 900 seat hall would cost at least $100M. Palo Alto would have to share in the costs, which would seem to be nominally half, or at least $50M (meaning $100M once the bond interest was paid).

Presumably Palo Alto would get its money back (over time), and then some. If the Hall is successful, and Palo Alto gets its money back–maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But if it does not draw the necessary patrons, where will the money come from to retire Palo Alto’s share of the bonds?

Then there is the issue of “co-management”. Stanford is a private entity. It really doesn’t want to have its “partner” demanding that the SIEU be involved in every decision made, or that the Hall become “green” and not provide parking, or encourage patrons to take public transportation to Hall events in order to accommodate some silly agenda of one or two elected officials.

If this Hall is built with private money, the public will be invited to attend these events. Putting the issue of traffic aside, Palo Alto will benefit from the building of this Hall by Stanford without having to become involved.

More bonsaid thinking from a poster who hasn’t bothered to look into possibilities, or properly thought things through.

First, the performing arts center is a *done* deal. So it doesn’t matter what I think could have been done, or what you want done. It’s over, and the opportunity is *gone*. Kiss a huge revenue and crown jewel possibility “bye-bye”.

The fact is that Stanford managed a single $50M donation toward the center. Wouldn’t you think that more would be on the way? Well, guess what? More is on the way. Are you telling me that the prestigious board at TheatreWorks, in addition to the more financially able folks in our town, wouldn’t have been able to come up with the rest, if Palo Alto had been involved?

SIEU? What are you talking about? Must we continue to have the paranoia of little minds, and their outsized fears about the unions (which would have had *nothing* to do with a privately built arts center that was *encouraged and facilitated by public interests)?

Traffic? What traffic? We’re going to see traffic *anyway*, as people go straight to the performing arts center and back out again – with a goodly number of them continuing home, or to other communities for follow up gatherings, and food. We’ll get some of the latter, but not as much as we would have had if we had a center on El Camino, with tie-ins to downtown.

There would have been MANY other advantages to having this center attached to Palo Alto – arts education, a venue for local artists, film festivals, etc. etc.

Some of these things will happen, but they will NOT happen with Palo Alto’s good name attached. We blew a BIG opportunity.

Duddie,

Go do some research on what combined performing arts centers can mean to a community – in terms of cultural exposure, education, etc. etc.

This would have primarlity been a *private* undertaking, *facilitated* by our city. We lost BIG on this one.

Those arguing that the city should have been more involved in this so that its “good name” could be attached are being parochial and silly.

All the benefits to the city allegedly associated with a “Palo Alto World Class Concert Hall) will be realized by the “Rich Stanford Donor World Class Concert Hall”.

Why in the the donors of the funds for this hall would think it useful to be “facilitated” by Frank Benest’s employees is a total mystery.

Duddie is right: the city has enough to do keeping up with filling potholes and finding a place to put library books without trying to stage concerts too. Both the city and the Performance Hall will be better off without the city being involved. This is a bit win for us all.

Likewise for those posting against PA involvement.

If you want proof of advantage, go take a look at the many, many successful collaborations between unicersityies and neighboring communities in performing arts centers, etc.

Listening to naysayers won’t profit anyone

[Post removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]