The old Flint Center for the Performing Arts at De Anza College is being torn down to make room for a new event center. The destruction was paid for by the Measure G megaproject. It happened after the Flint Center closed five years ago.
On October 8, excavators and work crews started tearing the building apart. They made a hole in the front of the building and started to remove internal concrete structures.
They also tore open the wall facing the Flint parking structure, which revealed bathrooms, handrails, and seating areas inside the now-defunct theater that had been gutted.
This happens after months of getting ready for the summer demolition of the outside, which included removing roofing tiles and panels and doing a lot of work inside to get rid of dangerous materials.
Demolition is only the beginning of the large-scale building and infrastructure work that needs to be done to fully rebuild the Flint Center.
The demolition had been set to happen from July 2 to September 30, but now it will go on until January 20, 2025, according to the Measure G building updates page. This delay is most likely due to a change in the Measure G team, as reported by La Voz, and the lengthy steps needed to get rid of dangerous materials.
The Flint Center was De Anza’s main event space for 48 years, but on June 10, 2019, the FHDA Board of Trustees decided to shut it down for good.
The building did not meet many safety, structural, and seismic codes, which led to the choice to close the Flint Center and build a new one from scratch.
These problems were pointed out in a 2023 environmental impact report that was sent to the state of California under the California Environmental Quality Act. The report also said that asbestos, a very dangerous insulation material, was probably present.
La Voz said that the project’s original budget of $75 million was cut to just $55 million when $20 million was given to Foothill College’s dental hygiene center.
On September 25, all membrs of the Measure G taskforce agreed to give an initial $30 million from the existing $55 million to help build the new performing arts center and a $9 million building for utilities to serve the new event center.
The board also talked about a plan to tear down the current arts quad and build a new student services building in its place.
But the FHDA Bonds website says that the plan to tear down the Arts Quad has been put on hold since October 2023 until the taskforce makes a final decision about whether to go ahead with the plan or go in a different way.
