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By Charlene Muhammad, Contributing Writer –

By this summer, Watts residents could break ground for a state-of-the-art theater and training center in the heart of their community, Barbara Stanton told residents at the Ted Watkins Memorial Park gymnasium Feb. 18.

As executive director of the Watts Cinema and Education Center Inc., she had always known that creating the Wattstar Theatre and Education Center could be accomplished, and now she has $10 million in funding to help complete it.

The center will rest on 1.66 acres of “blighted” land and span a 5-mile radius. It will consist of a full-service movie theater, equipped with four screens and have a 1,000-stadium-seat capacity. Its education and training facility will house 34 rooms and a security substation.

The classrooms and labs will be used to train youth in video/film production, post-production, animation, music editing, Web design and business development or expansion. There will also be a teleconference and distance learning center that will help carry youth from Watts into other parts of the world through global communications.

The project is expected to create 60 jobs altogether, divided by both sections of the facility.

But Stanton intends for it to bring dining restaurants and other stores to the community.

“A major challenge has been overcoming the negative stigma that Watts doesn’t need, nor deserve, anything but social services,” Stanton said in a phone interview after the townhall.

And there were other obstacles.

The concept was solid. Corporate giants like Warner Bros. Entertainment, Disney and other proven names were already on board to help train staff. However, “convincing the bureaucrats that the project was feasible and would be self-sustaining was also a barrier.

“The land on which we’re building had to be part of it, so we took a piece of land that no one was using, that was, for lack of a better term, blighted, and now we’re turning it into completion of a Watts civic center and entertainment center that we’ve needed for 40 to 50 years,” she said.

It has been about 45 years since the last theater in Watts burned down during the 1965 Watts Rebellion. To enjoy a good theater experience, residents currently have to drive miles outside of their community. For youth and others without transportation, many people take two buses to go to a theater.

She said another challenge for the project was getting private funding, but after some eight years of writing to, and being rejected by, the foundation world, Wattstar received its first million dollars from the Annenberg Foundation, which, as its Web site states, “works to advance public well-being through improved communication.”

“All the naysayers, when you get a million dollars, they look at it differently ... But one of the best feelings, accomplishments in the world, was being able to prove that the four theaters generate enough income so that we can service our debt and pay all of our bills and have almost a half a million dollars left over for our own programs,” Stanton said.

The planners have also received $2 million from the U.S. Department of Commerce, and $2.25 million of Community Development Block Grant funds from the City of L.A., she said.

Stanton said that $13 million of the $23 million project will come from the Industrial Development Authority, a bond financing source with the City of L.A.’s Community Development Department, which planners will repay by selling bonds.

The theater could open by September 2011.

The townhall was well-attended by the community and various state and local representatives, including L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.

Ronald Jackson, a local community artist, has always believed the Wattstar project was a great idea. He was also concerned, however, about the theater’s close proximity to train tracks, and whether it would be sound enough to withstand the vibrations.

He also wondered if or how the complex’s new parking stalls and necessary street conversion would impede traffic. Those questions and others were satisfied during the town hall meeting, he said.

“If they actually build it and people patronize the movie theater and the educational level, get the training, get the jobs available in that line, that will be a great thing because we have been excluded in the production of filmmaking and things of that nature that take place in Hollywood and all over L.A.,” Jackson said, “so I think given that opportunity, it can be good, if it’s done the way it’s said.”

Earl Gales, chairman and CEO of Jenkins/Gales & Martinez Inc. (JGM), architects for the project, expressed that the project is dear to him because he grew up in Watts on Graham Avenue. Gales said he remembers when he and his brother traveled downtown to the only theater there was.

“This will be one of my best projects that we have ever worked on,” he said at the townhall.