In the Library Ashes, There Is Some Hope : Officials Optimistic That Fire Has Not Destroyed Plans to Renovate Landmark

Los Angeles city officials were guardedly confident Wednesday that a $141-million renovation and expansion approved for the Central Library will move ahead, based on the assessment that major damage from Tuesday’s fire appeared to be confined to areas that would have been gutted anyway.

“I’m optimistic,” said Library Commission President Ronald S. Lushing after receiving preliminary briefings on the damage to the 60-year-old historic landmark. “Based on what we know, it appears we could go forward.”

Before moving ahead with the rehabilitation approved by the City Council last year, including an addition that would more than double the library’s size, tests must be made of the extent of structural damage caused by the fire, said Lushing and a spokesman for Mayor Tom Bradley.

Reports on those tests may not be completed for several days, said John Stodder, Bradley’s press aide.

While preliminary reports were encouraging, City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie said there are concerns that the blaze could have weakened girders in the library’s concrete walls.

“If the fire was too hot and the structural steel was damaged, we may not be able to save the building,” Comrie said.

If the Byzantine revival-style building sustained severe structural damage, it could reopen a decades-old debate over the future of the prime 5th Street library site in the heart of the booming office district.

Negative reaction by preservationists and key downtown business leaders to a 1970s plan to raze the Central Library and build office towers on the site led to a complex Community Redevelopment Agency proposal to preserve the facility at little cost to the city.

By selling the library property’s unused air rights to high-rise developers and selling the library building itself to a private firm that would lease it back to the city, the CRA said it could generate $141 million for renovating the library.

Maguire-Thomas Partners, the developer that bought the library’s air rights, is planning a 70-story tower near the library that would be the city’s tallest building. Maguire is scheduled to make its first $26-million payment to the city in June.

There were no solid estimates of the loss Wednesday or how much the costs of the renovation might escalate. Comrie said that if there is no serious structural damage, the costs might not escalate significantly.

Scrambling Wednesday to salvage water-damaged books in the Central Library’s huge collection, officials were reluctant to discuss how the library would be replaced if demolition is required. “Speculating to me does not make a lot of sense until we have all the facts,” Lushing said.

But he acknowledged selling the Central Library site to developers and building a new library elsewhere will be among the options.

With the preliminary reports that the library was not severely damaged, some officials, as well as preservationists who have fought to save the library, suggested that the blaze could speed up the long-awaited renewal of the library by combining repair and renovation work.

A top CRA staffer, Donald Spivak, said Wednesday that the agency had asked the architect on the library project to “look at a way to speed up” his work.

Ruthann Lehrer, director of the Los Angeles Conservancy, the city’s largest preservation group, said, “Hopefully (the fire) will shorten the time frame (for the project) that has gone on far too long.”

Lehrer and library officials, saying they had been inundated with calls from people wanting to volunteer to help salvage the library and its collection, also said the fire provides an opportunity to boost public support for the facility, which has deteriorated over the years as post-Proposition 13 budget cuts have taken their toll.

Bradley in the next few days is expected to announce a major program to involve those offering to help. Lushing said the program could include a major fund-raising drive.