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Performing Arts Center Feasibility Study

Department of Libraries & Cultural Arts

Mission Viejo, CA

Mission Viejo is a bedroom community of 94,000 located in the Saddleback Valley in South Orange County. The city is historically known for its sports culture and tourism, having produced multiple Olympians and boasting impressive youth sports facilities. In 2016, the city commissioned an arts and culture master plan to balance capital investments in this sector. This led to the creation of the Potocki Center for the visual arts and the establishment of a new Cultural Arts division under the Library Department.

TheatreDNA was engaged for the next phase of the master plan: a feasibility study for a theatre and broader performing arts development in the community. The study involved extensive community engagement events, a survey with nearly 1,000 responses, and stakeholder interviews with local art groups, civic leaders, and administrators from Saddleback College and Saddleback Valley USD.

The study’s outcomes included a market study, competitor profiles, venue benchmarking, and site analysis of eight locations. It concluded that Mission Viejo could carve out a niche in the competitive Orange County market with a 600-seat performing arts center owned and operated by the city. TheatreDNA recommended starting smaller, with a 300-seat flexible theatre and art gallery in a vacant shopping center, to reduce initial capital investment, activate the downtown core, and allow the city to gradually develop its performing arts division.

COMPLETION

2024

OWNER

City of Mission Viejo

ARCHITECT

None

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