By Lookout Staff

June 12, 2015 -- Preliminary documents designed to guide future plans for the landmark Santa Monica Civic Auditorium are now complete and will be presented to residents at a community meeting this weekend.

Members of the Civic Working Group, an appointed committee leading the City’s planning process for the facility, created a draft of “guiding principals” for the future of the 57-year-old auditorium and is seeking public input on the documents, said Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Director Jessica Cusick.

Saturday’s meeting in the east wing of the Civic, 1855 Main Street, beginning at 9:30 a.m., is the last of three community workshop sponsored by the Civic Working Group.

The workshop will “bring together all the information, ideas and finding from the visioning process to date,” said Cusick.

Residents’ input on the guiding principals will be incorporated into the Civic Working Group’s final report that will be completed as members continue meeting over the summer. Their final report is scheduled to go to the City Council in October, said Cusick.

Developed over the course of an 18-month “community visioning process,” the guiding principals “tie together the community’s input with the Civic Working Group’s findings,” she said.

Nina Fresco, who chairs the Working Group, said the documents “address the moving parts that would be adjusted one way or another based on where the funding ends up coming from by defining the outer limits of what could be built, and re-enforcing advocacy for the features that have the most support in the community.”

Civic Working Group members first convened in September, when they held their first community workshop to introduce the group to residents and outline its tasks and goals.

At a second workshop in January, officials introduced an interactive online tool to help the Civic Working Group and residents in the planning process. (“New Website to Debut at Meeting on Santa Monica Civic Auditorium’s Future,” January 28, 2015)

So far, the workshops have brought together “a broad array of stakeholders to explore options for the future of the facility that will ensure the Civic Auditorium remains a signature cultural resource for Santa Monica,” said Cusick.

Opened in 1958, the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium – which once hosted the Academy Awards and legendary rock concerts -- was closed in June 2013 due to a lack of funding to seismically retrofit and modernize the facility.

The City’s new vision for the auditorium includes using the facility as “the hub of a cultural campus” that incorporates “compatible adjacent uses,” according to the City’s website.

No reservations are required for Saturday’s workshop. Doors will open at 9 a.m. and refreshments will be offered throughout the morning.