Ever sat in an audience wishing you could sing along? Now’s your chance. Patrons are invited to be a part of the extended chorus in this production, which promises to put you, literally, in the middle of the action.
On Saturday, March 20 at 8pm the Mikado Sing Along presented by the Lamplighters Music Theater performs at the Lesher Center of the Arts.
For more information and tickets go to http://www.lesherartscenter.org/onstagenow/mar2010
George Komsky, a young Danville tenor, is performing a live solo concert for the first time before a hometown audience. George Komsky Live in Concert takes the stage at Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center at March 19th at 8pm for a night of Opera, Pop Opera, Neapolitan classics and musical surprises. A portion of the proceeds from the show will be donated to the Wheelchair Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing wheelchairs for those without mobility and without the means to afford it.
For information and tickets, please go to http://www.lesherartscenter.org/onstagenow/mar2010
Onstage Theatre presents the premiere of Glorious Sunset, by David E. Harris, running March 5 till 28 at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek. Love, Betrayal, Murder! An Audience – Interactive century old mystery that only you the audience can solve in this new play by a real life attorney.
Please visit http://www.lesherartscenter.org/ for more information and tickets.
Over six decades ago, a wonderful, fresh show caught the imagination of wartime America and launched the most successful songwriting partnership in Broadway history. Sparked by rivalry between cowhands and farmers this touching drama rides the bumpy road to new life in a brand-new state. A glorious reminder of just how life-enhancing a musical can be. The muscial is showing at the Lesher Center for the Arts from March, 26 till April 25th.
Please visit http://www.lesherartscenter.org/onstagenow/0910ccmt for more information and tickets.
With a program of Adams, Common Tones in Simple Time, Bruch, Violin Concerto featuring Chad Hoopes, Violin and Dvorak, Symphony No. 8, the California Symphony presents its program on March 7 and 9 at 7:30pm at the Lesher Center for the Arts.
For tickets, visit http://www.lesherartscenter.org/onstagenow/0910casymph.
Percussionist Ken Bergmann is back at the Lesher Center for the Arts with his smashing spectacle of drums, cowbells, chairs and more in Percussion Discussion. Tickets for $13 for the show on Friday, March 12th at 7pm are available at the Lesher Center for the Arts.
Please visit their website at http://www.lesherartscenter.org/onstagenow/percussiondiscussion
The Chopin Café in Walnut Creek presents a very special evening to benefit Team In Training for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. On Monday, March 15th from 6:30pm to 9pm you can enjoy a delicious buffet dinner of traditional Polish dishes. Includes appetizers, entrees and desserts, as well as wine and sparkling water. There will be also be raffling some wonderful prizes. Please make your reservation of a $25 ticket until March 13th.
Visit http://www.chopin-cafe.com/buffet.htm for more information.
More Bay Area cities are looking to position potential development sites near transit to compete for billions of funding and attract developers.
In the last three years, more than 60 cities in the nine-county region have applied to have a transportation node in their city designated as a “priority development area.” That status makes it easier for cities secure funding for future transit-oriented residential projects.
The Association of Bay Area Governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission are the lead agencies that operate the development area program and have granted the status to 100 sites so far.
The number continues to climb. Oakland is in the process of adding six priority development areas, mostly around BART stations. Fremont is pursuing the status for the land around the Warm Springs BART station, which started construction last fall.
“It’s a robust program that is providing a foundation for sustainable communities,” said Miriam Chion, principal planner for ABAG.
The program was created out of an initiative called FOCUS, that is a partnership between ABAG, MTC, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission with a goal of encouraging more efficient and environmentally-friendly development.
Funding is available from numerous sources including the MTC, which has set aside $2.2 billion through 2035 for infrastructure work, improving transit access and land-banking for in-fill development in the Bay Area. The commission is accepting proposals for the first $40 million allocation of that program.
Cities can also apply grants from a pool of more than $10 million MTC has also set aside to pay for site planning and development costs. That program has already awarded 25 of those grants totalling $13.1 million.
Avalon Bay, a major builder of market-rate apartments, has built a few projects in priority development areas, including one completed last year in Union City and another in Dublin. Both are near BART stations.
“There are a tremendous number of obstacles to developing anything in the Bay Area,” said Jeff White, senior development director for Avalon Bay. “To the extent you can lower the barriers to entry, it will make whatever kind of development you are trying to do occur.”
Avalon Bay is building 422 units at Contra Costa Centre in Walnut Creek, a priority development area, where most of the site planning, including $59.5 million of infrastructure work, was already in place creating a “plug and play” situation for the developer.
“Without that investment, our project would not be financially feasible,” White said.
Thompson Dorfman Partners, a Mill Valley-based development firm, has completed more than a dozen projects near transit in the last 10 years including 555 YVR, an 87-unit project near the Walnut Creek BART station that came online last summer. The firm plans to pursue more transit-oriented projects in priority development areas.
Bruce Dorfman, a principal with the firm, said cities and potential residents have become more accepting of higher density residential projects.
“At first, living near transit was considered a nuisance,” Dorfman said. “Now, people say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ Living in an urban core, you can walk out to the stores and the restaurants. Years ago, we got a push back on that.”
Besides lifestyle, putting more people closer to transit and job centers is also a necessity. ABAG estimates that the priority development areas take up about 3 percent of the total land available for development in the Bay Area. That percentage could increase if more sites are added.
Chion, the ABAG planner, said that small fraction of land could accommodate that more than half of the region’s projected population growth by 2035.
Priorities
Bay Area priority development areas:
Contra Costa: 28.
Alameda: 27.
San Mateo: 15.
Santa Clara: 11.
San Francisco: 10.
Solano: 9.
Sonoma: 9.
Marin: 3.
Napa: None.
Total: 112
Source: Association of Bay Area Governments.
The Bedford Gallery shows an unique survey of three extraordinary artists, Squeak Carnwath, Hung Liu and Inez Storer, who explore the art of storytelling, using words and images.
Come from February 14 till April 11 to 1601 Civic Drive to see this distinctive, and highly individual approach to art making.
For more information visit http://www.bedfordgallery.org/programs.htm
San Francisco Business Times – by J.K. Dineen
Boutique condo project 555YVR makes 30th sale
Thompson-Dorfman Partners 555YVR has logged its 30th sale in Walnut Creek. The project is attracting about half BART commuters — mostly workers from San Francisco, Oakland and Fremont — and about half current Walnut Creek residents.
The price per square foot has averaged $466. The project, the only new condo project in the I-680 corridor to open in 2009, is next to the BART station at 555 Ygnacio Valley Road. Prices range from $300,000s to mid-$700,000s. Residents began moving in a few months ago.
“Downtown Walnut Creek is a highly desirable neighborhood in which to live, work and play,” said Bruce Dorfman, principal of Thompson-Dorfman Partners “The future arrival of Neiman-Marcus is yet another signal of the area’s cachet, something not lost on our buyers.”
This month, 555YVR will begin to offer FHA loans, enabling buyers to apply a down payment as low as 3.5 percent, which could help demand in a market with no other new condominiums under construction.
