Revitalization Partner Group

October 13, 2025

Mayor Lana Negrete,

Mayor Pro Tem Caroline Torosis,

Councilmembers Jesse Zwick, Dan Hall, Ellis Raskin, Barry Snell,

and Natalya Zernitskaya

1685 Main Street

Santa Monica, CA 90401

RE: October 14, 2025 City Council Regular Meeting Agenda Item 11C: Approval of First Modification to Exclusive Negotiation Agreement with Revitalization Partner Group, LLC for the Civic Center Auditorium Renovation, Programming and Operation

Honorable Mayor and Councilmembers:

This letter is in response to the City Council Staff Report dated October 14, 2025, regarding the Exclusive Negotiation Agreement (“ENA”) for the renovation of the Civic Center Auditorium and its surrounding site (the “Civic”). We were both surprised and deeply disappointed by the findings in that report, many of which were inaccurate and collectively appeared to be critical of our team’s efforts to find a solution to one of the City’s most challenging projects. The basic tenet of the report is that our project to renovate the Civic Auditorium is not economically viable without public subsidies, the implication being that the City Council should not extend the term of the ENA since it would be a waste of time. To cut to the chase and be frank with each of you, if we believed that, then we would not be wasting our time requesting an extension and continuing to engage with community stakeholders and incur significant expenses to make this project happen.

As a reminder, we are a consortium of four of the leading live entertainment companies in the world: Oak View Group, the global leader in venue development, management, and premium hospitality services for the live event industry; Live Nation, the world’s largest company focused on live entertainment; Make Good Group, a leading social impact firm; and The Azoff Company, a leading diversified music company founded by long-time Westside Los Angeles resident and music industry legend Irving Azoff. Each of the companies involved in the project has significant financial resources and operational experience to make this project happen. To be clear, we are not looking for and have never requested public subsidies.

Instead, we have spent several months carefully studying how to thoughtfully save a historic resource and incorporate additional visitor-serving retail and dining that works around infrastructure constraints and respects the historic fabric of the site, with a goal to pave the way for a revitalization of the entire neighborhood and shine a positive light on Santa Monica. As you are aware, this is a complex exercise that has eluded other potential developers for over a decade. We strongly believe that our unique combination of skills across project construction and financing and content development is the City’s best hope to save the Civic.

Our vision for the Civic is to make it a major event destination and tourist attraction once more. By focusing on the newest and most innovative types of must-see content, including immersive shows, we can have more shows per week that will bring more people to the City. When we bring the Civic back online, it will have a multiplier effect for all of Santa Monica. We have seen repeatedly around the world that when an event venue like the Civic is built or renovated, it brings dollars into the community. Greater LA residents and tourists from around the world will come before and stay after events to dine, shop, stay in hotels, and spend money in Santa Monica. In our experience in comparably sized cities, a similar venue with the type of content we are suggesting could experience an economic impact of roughly $1.9 billion in the first three years of operations. As noted below, one of our next steps is to validate that assumption as part of a formal economic impact analysis.

In the last six months, we have spent close to $1 million and countless man hours studying the feasibility of revitalizing the Civic. The City has received a good faith deposit of $250,000 from us to cover any expenses that the City might have incurred in this process, although we understand that no such expenses have yet been incurred. Yet, we need to do more work. Now that we have a set of concept drawings that we believe strike a balance between the need for modernizing and upgrading the building and preserving and respecting its historic architecture, we need to do the next level of drawings to properly quantify the full cost of this renovation. Once we have that, we can build a more detailed business plan and commission a full economic impact analysis for the City so that we can all make a fully informed decision about this project.

We are for-profit companies that have numerous projects like the Civic around the world. We would not spend our time or money on this if we did not believe it was worth it. We were very clear with City staff that this is a process that cannot and should not be rushed, and that it could take more than six months to get the answers we need, which is why we built into the ENA the idea of extensions.

The “business plan” in the staff report is pure fiction, and we were not asked to opine on its conclusions. The cost listed to renovate the building is ludicrously high and has no foundation. Rather than dispute such a report line by line, we prefer to focus our efforts on what is actually possible here, and believe this important historic landmark deserves the time needed to figure this out.

In closing as a reminder, we have not asked the City for any money, nor signaled any intention to ask the City for a subsidy. We are simply requesting an extension to spend our own money on additional due diligence to determine with more certainty, the cost and feasibility of the Civic revitalization for both the City of Santa Monica and for our group. It will cost the City nothing more than 180 days.

We remain committed to revitalizing Santa Monica and the Civic Auditorium. We hope that you will give us the time we need to work with you and our other community stakeholders do that.

Sincerely,

Tim Sexton

Beth Collins

CC: City Manager Oliver Chi

Economic Development Administrator Nia Tang