Costa Mesa’s Orange County Performing Arts Center is being renamed the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.
The center changed its name Wednesday to honor the Segerstrom family, which founded the center in 1986.
“The naming of Segerstrom Center for the Arts is a very generous gesture and one that touches us all very deeply,” said Henry Segerstrom, managing partner of C.J. Segerstrom & Sons LLC and founding chairman of the center.
The Segerstrom family developed and own South Coast Plaza, which is across the street from the center.
The newly named Segerstrom Center for the Arts is part of a 14-acre arts complex, developed through a series of land donations by the Segerstroms.
The name change isn’t in response to any new Segerstrom giving.
The center puts on music, dance, Broadway shows and other performing arts events. It also has an arts education program for school kids.
Venues at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts include the 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall, 250-seat Founders Hall and the 2,000-seat Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, which opened in 2006.
Henry Segerstrom donated $51 million a few years back to build the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall.
Next year, for the center’s 25th anniversary, the center will debut a new dance show, starring Bolshoi Ballet dancers Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev.
“As we look to a future of unlimited possibilities, it seems especially appropriate that we mark this new era, and new name, with a burst of creative energy, adding an important new work of choreography to the world’s stage,” said Terrence Dwyer, president of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.
The new name extends to the 14-acre site, formerly known as Orange County Performing Arts Center and Segerstrom Center for the Arts.
The arts campus began in 1978 with the opening of the South Coast Repertory.
It is home to other arts groups including Pacific Symphony, the Philharmonic Society of Orange County and Pacific Chorale.
The Orange County Museum of Art, now in Newport Beach near Fashion Island, is slated to relocate to the center in 2016.
