New Event Center Gets Ready To Open In Rossmoor

A long-disputed performing arts center in the heart of the Rossmoor senior community will finally open its doors this fall.

Construction on the $11 million Creekside Event Center is scheduled to be completed at the end of November.

A grand opening is planned for the first weekend in December. A full slate of activities is expected to begin in January.

The new 20,200-square-foot center sits on the south side of Stanley Dollar Drive. It's between the portion of the event center on the north side of the road finished in October 2010 and the Dollar Clubhouse, the historic home of Stanley Dollar.

The project was approved in March 2012 by a 7-2 vote of Rossmoor's Golden Rain Foundation board of directors.

The prime reason for building the center was to move concerts, dances and other activities out of the old Del Valle High School gymnasium and then use that facility simply as a fitness center for Rossmoor residents.

"The acoustics were never right there. It's a gym," said Maureen O'Rourke, Rossmoor's senior manager of communications. "It was a no-brainer to keep fitness there. It made sense to keep that there and move everything else here."

The new center has a large performing arts hall that can seat more than 400 people. It also has two meeting rooms and a full-service kitchen.

The Golden Rain Foundation paid for some of the construction with the $7,000 membership fee residents pay when they first move in.

They borrowed the rest of the money and are paying it off with future fees.

The center has been the focus of opposition from a healthy slice of the 9,500 residents who live in Rossmoor.

Protests were staged before the project was approved. After the 7-2 vote, some board members were replaced in the next elections.

Bob Dickson, one of the chief opponents, said residents didn't necessarily object to an events center, they just did like the location of this project.

He said it's difficult to access from Stanley Dollar Drive, parking isn't adequate and it sits too close to the Dollar Clubhouse.

"It's a lousy place to put it. There had to be a better place than this," said Dickson. "Plus, parking is already a problem. It's going to be a disaster."

Dickson said the center, which he calls a "huge, ugly monster," was unexpected. After the foundation built the first phase of the project on the north side of Stanley Dollar Drive, many residents felt the construction was over.

However, Don Liddle, president of the Rossmoor board, said the new center will benefit the community as a whole.

He said Rossmoor has more than 200 clubs, all of which need meeting rooms. In addition, the community will be able to attract better musical acts because of the better acoustics.

"I think it's going to be popular when it opens," he said, "and even more popular after people use it."