He has a dream

The General Director of the San Francisco Opera has a vision for the future of the company, and it’s…a multi-storied annex?

David Gockley has a dream, and it’s to transform a parking lot behind the Veterans Building into a multi-storied annex for the San Francisco Opera.
Of course, like any dream, there is a reality check. In this case, it’s about $60 million.
That’s the preliminary cost analysis to build the annex in the historically sensitive Civic Center, according to documents recently submitted to the city’s Capital Planning Committee.
Gockley, the Opera’s general director, points to the benefits of consolidating the opera’s facilities, currently scattered in seven locations across the city, including a scene shop at the foot of Potrero Hill and administrative offices at Ivy and Gough streets.
“Since 1980 we’ve spent $40 million in supporting this ramshackled system,” Gockley wrote in the November Opera newsletter. “If only that money could be spent on the art … or for a building!”
…”If I could leave one legacy to this company,” Gockley wrote in the newsletter, “it would be a centralized facility.”

No doubt a new facility such as this would make life a lot easier for many people in the company, although I think it’s a little disingenous to suggest that a good chunk of that $40 million wouldn’t have been spent in running a centralized facility as well.

But, if I were running an opera company of the stature of San Francisco (which no intelligent board would ever hire me to do), I’d want to be remembered for something a little grander than building a combination office building/scene shop.