Cerritos Council to Discuss Replacing 332 CCPA Chairs, Cost: $420,000

$1,265 AVERAGE:  A CCPA chair that was basically a no-bid award under the city’s procurement policy.

February 14, 2025

By Brian Hews

The Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts has lost over $100 million since it opened in 1993. Former City Manager Art Gallucci once told LCCN, “It’s the cost of doing business. It brings people to Cerritos, and they spend money.”

Many Cerritos residents would object to that, demanding the sale of the venue, but the City Council, led by Bruce Barrows as Mayor five times, has never considered a sale. Doubling down, the new Cerritos management team recently retained a Tennessee-based company to help with ticket sales; as of November, total ticket sales were only $4.6 million; the CCPA projected’ 24-’25 budget is $11 million. 

Now, the city needs to replace the armchairs in the swanky Theater Seating Boxes inside the CCPA, which, if approved, will cost hundreds of thousands and add even more to the CCPA’s red ink.

 There are two versions of the armchair: a standard height for the first row in the boxes and a tall version so patrons can see from the second row in each box. The tall armchairs also provide seating for the last row in the Grand Level, second floor of the CCPA, allowing patrons to have an unobstructed view over the heads of other audience members in standard seats. 

The city looked at all the CCPA seating configurations and found that the CCPA needs 206 standard-height armchairs and 126 tall armchairs for a total of 332 armchairs throughout the theater. The CCPA also holds 36 additional armchairs for replacements of worn or broken chairs.

Custom designed (of course),  the original armchairs are wooden with a curved back and have the same harlequin upholstery patterns on the seat cushions used in the folding seats found throughout the CCPA.

Spending more money, the city engaged a “design consultant” to “identify a suitable and cost-effective replacement for the premium seats.” The city looked at several replacement seats and chose Huntington Beach-based Yamada Enterprises for City Council consideration.

Yamada quoted $1,008 per chair for the standard height and $1,063 per chair for the tall chairs; that does not include $20,000 for the harlequin fabric. The total cost is $420,000 for 332 chairs, with an average cost per chair of $1,265.

If approved, the award will be a no-bid award based on a Section of the Cerritos Municipal Code’s Purchasing and Contracting Policy that allows the city to accept a bid because Yamada is a “qualified vendor” through a California Multiple Award Schedule Cooperative Contract, a procurement program offered by California “to streamline purchasing for state and local government agencies.”

The staff report read, “The California Multiple Award Schedule (CMAS) Cooperative Contract is a procurement program offered by the State of California to streamline purchasing for state and local government agencies. CMAS contracts adopt the already bid and negotiated General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule awarded to suppliers and/or contractors. These contracts establish terms, conditions, and pricing for various products and services from pre-approved vendors, such as Yamada, while complying with all legal and policy requirements for purchasing. The city’s membership with CMAS is in good standing, and Yamada’s quote for the project conforms to CMAS Partners’ cooperative rates and is in compliance with the CMC and PCP.”