L.A. Swap Gives Land to Junior Achievement

A swap of 4.8 acres of city land near the entrance to Forest Lawn Memorial Park for 110 acres in the Hollywood Hills was unanimously approved by the Los Angeles City Council Wednesday.

The exchange will provide Junior Achievement with a site for a 22,000-square-foot headquarters and training center. It also will provide the city with land to extend a hiking trail from Griffith Park across the Hollywood Hills, according to the city Recreation and Parks Department, which recommended the exchange.

Junior Achievement proposes to build a $3.7-million, one-story building on the 4.8-acre site to serve as its Los Angeles headquarters, which has been in an old building in North Hollywood. The facility also will be used as the training headquarters for more than 3,400 volunteers who teach business enterprise to more than 30,000 youths each year, said Richard Lawrence, director of development for Junior Achievement in Los Angeles County.

Overlooking Burbank, the 110 acres that the city will receive are owned by Forest Lawn but have never been used for burials. The steep, undeveloped land lies above the cemetery and has been appraised at $800,000.

The city property, valued at $225,000, is an unused, triangular parcel on Forest Lawn Drive. It was acquired by the department in 1927 but was cut off from other parkland after construction of the Ventura Freeway. Forest Lawn will, in effect, donate the property to Junior Achievement.

James Hadaway, general manager of the Recreation and Parks Department, said the site has become a “chronic eyesore and maintenance problem to the department due to illegal trash dumping.”