Residents weigh in on proposed amphitheather

AEA Consulting gathers opinions from locals to see where the structure should be built, what events they would like to see

The Greek Theatre and Santa Barbara Bowl are serving as inspiration for consultants tasked with gathering community input on the building of an amphitheater in Santa Clarita.

AEA Consulting sought the opinions of more than 60 residents Wednesday evening at The Centre as the consulting firm polled attendees and used the Poll Everywhere app to gather input. Residents used their smartphones Wednesday to voice their opinions on where an amphitheater may be placed in the city and what events they’d like to see there.

“There’s no point in building an amphitheater unless it makes life better,” said Laura Zucker, one of the consultants and former executive director of the L.A. County Arts Commission. “It needs to make life better for the people who live here who may not have to travel so far to go to see events of interest and potentially could bring people here. That could be an economic boon to the city in terms of restaurants and hotels and things like that.”

Zucker said the city’s growing diversity is a factor in bringing programming to a proposed amphitheater as is the Santa Clarita Valley’s natural beauty.

“You live, as you know, in one of the most beautiful sites in the world with tremendous potential to create an amphitheater that’s fully integrated into the surrounding environment that could be a real destination in and of itself,” she said.

As for size, the Santa Barbara Bowl is the smallest of the four venues—4,562 concertgoers— named as inspiration for planners. The Greek seats 5,870 people while the largest venue used as a framework was the Koka Booth Amphitheater outside Raleigh, North Carolina, which seats 7,000 people. Planners estimated they would require 30 acres to build the amphitheater with a shell or inside a natural bowl.

Santa Clarita’s Arts and Events Manager Phil Lantis said the Arts Commission had the amphitheater development plan as one of their work plan priorities for last year.

“Knowing it is a multi-year process, it is not like the commission can say, ‘We’re talking about an amphitheater and by the end of the year, we’ll have one built,” he said. “The goal was to have a feasibility study and luckily, the City Council was in support of that.”

Lantis said the city would be emailing the results of the evening within the next few weeks.

“It won’t be the final plan by any stretch of the imagination, but we want to share back what we heard from this meeting,” he said.

In November, the city awarded a $59,640 consulting contract to AEA Consulting to conduct a study on where an amphitheater may fit and at what cost.

City officials said any final decision on an amphitheater by the Arts Commission and the City Council will be based on the market and the community’s needs. The amphitheater will not be built until after the city completes projects that are part of its Santa Clarita 2020 plan.

At a November city council meeting, former councilman TimBen Boydston said an amphitheater was “the No. 1 thing the arts community wanted.” Councilman Bob Kellar said it was clear to him residents want an amphitheater.