Amphitheater sits unfinished while awaiting materials
The amphitheater site sits vacant other than some framing and the original concrete stage. (Staff photo) By Doug Spoon, Editor Menifee’s C...
By Doug Spoon, Editor
Menifee’s Central Park Amphitheater, a $6.6 million project that broke ground in February 2024, is now four months past its original completion date and the site has been sitting empty for quite some time.
The site is surrounded by construction fencing with an information sign still listing the timeline as extending from February 2024 to February 2025. A disruption in work on the project is due to a delay in receiving the beams that will facilitate the curved shape of the shell covering over the current concrete stage.
“The next step for the amphitheater is the installation of the glue-laminate beams, which are critical to shaping the project’s unique design,” said Phil Southard, public information officer for the City of Menifee. “City staff is currently working with the contractor to determine the schedule for the completion of that work.
“We will have an updated timeline for completion once the schedule of work for the glue-laminate beams is determined.”
The project originally was discussed as a simple shade structure in 2016 with an estimated cost of $100,000. Later, an ad hoc committee of City Council members Dean Deines and Lesa Sobek requested a more elaborate structure, city staff’s updated estimated cost was $400,000. By 2021, the design cost alone had increased to $529,000 and the estimated cost of the entire project was $3.9 million.
Today, the project has expanded to include a two-piece arching cover that will be 26 feet tall, covering 3,500 square feet of performance space with lighting and sound system, plus 2,500 square feet of storage space in a building behind the stage. Total cost of the project is now estimated at $6.6 million, with a total of $7.3 million budgeted.
In response to an inquiry from Menifee 24/7 following questions from readers about the increased pricetag, Southard provided the following statement this April, saying that 96 percent of the project is funded by restricted and one-time funds (43 percent restricted, 53 percent one-time).
“The majority of the funds utilized for the construction of the amphitheater are restricted to park development and could not be used for road infrastructure projects, and one-time funding sources that could not be used to support ongoing operations,” Southard wrote in an email. “After adjusting for inflationary costs that have occurred in the last 10 years, including an increase in general construction costs of more than 40 percent, the cost to construct the Central Park Amphitheater is in line with other comparable projects within the region in the last decade, including the amphitheaters completed by the cities of Murrieta and Moreno Valley in 2021.”
