Can Long Beach’s amphitheater, auditorium revamp create entertainment capital of world? – Press Telegram

Delivering a State of the City speech in the midst of an area-wide tragedy is no easy task.

Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson gave it a shot last week and for the most part, pulled it off. He and his staff had to pivot from a full-blown music celebration to a more low-key presentation topped with a pitch for donations to a disaster relief fund for victims of the wildfires in north Los Angeles.

This whole State of the City thing has ramped up over the years. It started as a Charter-mandated statement of accomplishments and goals from the mayor to the City Council, morphed into a Chamber of Commerce fundraiser, then morphed again into a bit of an extravaganza sponsored by city departments.

There’s more than a little irony in the growing entertainment component of the State of the City presentation since Richardson has hung his hat on Long Beach becoming the “Coastal Live Music Capital of the World.” The idea is to replace city revenue from oil production with people attending concerts, live music venues and the like.

The biggest component of this approach is a new 10,000-12,000-seat amphitheater next to the Queen Mary. It’s an unabashed copy of the Hollywood Bowl – even named the Long Beach Bowl – but with a waterfront and downtown skyline view.

Richardson has been talking about this for a year. Now we know that it is supposed to open this fall, and that the operators will be ASM Global (the same outfit operating the Arena and Convention Center) and Legends Hospitality, an outfit owned by Jerry Jones of Dallas Cowboys fame and partners.

The big reveal for this year’s State of the City was a plan to revamp the Arena to bring back its glory days as a concert venue. They have spent several million dollars in recent years to turn the Arena into a pretty spectacular multipurpose venue, so I’m not too sure what the plan will be. Do you think it might include doing something with the peeling Wyland Whales mural that covers the thing?

Whatever they do, I’m having a hard time believing the entertainment industry is going to scale up to a size that will replace the millions of dollars that oil production has been pouring into city coffers, especially by 2030, which is the stated goal.

Richardson did give a nod to the economic generator that is small business, with a $1 million Long Beach Small Business Rebound program, waiving first-year fees for startups locating in areas needing help and bolstering a Legacy Business program to help older businesses stay alive.

Most importantly, new Safe and Secure grants will be made available for proactive crime prevention measures. Owners consistently say vandalism and theft are on top of the list of problems they face.

Public safety in general got its deserved place of prominence, with Richardson boasting that both Police and Fire are better staffed – enough so that 10 fire engines and crews as well as a number of police units were deployed to help with the Palisades and Eaton fires without endangering coverage in Long Beach.

Those police were called into action twice when hecklers interrupted Richardson’s speech. This was even after he had acknowledged picketers outside the event from Unite Here Local 11 complaining about Convention Center contractors not included in a recent agreement raising wages. The hecklers apparently were talking about rent control, not Unite Here issues.

Tragedies related to the fires impacted several parts of the speech, including cancellation of a preview of the Vans Warped Tour returning to Long Beach. But Richardson still scored with an appearance by Warren G, the well-known rapper and music producer from Long Beach, to make a pitch for Richardson’s entertainment economy approach.

And the focus on helping victims of the wildfires was both fitting and productive. Thanks to a huge $300,000 donation from Boeing and another big one from Ford, Richardson was able to announce at the end of the evening that Long Beach would be handing over $560,000 to the California Community Foundation.

That’s the kind of State of the City I like. The State of Giving.