Local News in Brief : Agency Won’t Buy Hotel

A private downtown social service agency has abandoned its plan to convert a vacant Echo Park hotel into a residence for the mentally ill after tests showed the presence of a toxic chemical in soil beneath the building.

Mollie Lowery, director of the Los Angeles Men’s Place (LAMP) said the discovery of perchloroethylene (PCE), a cancer-causing solvent commonly used in dry cleaning, caused the organization to cancel escrow only days before it was expected to take possession of the building at Sunset and Echo Park boulevards.

Lowery declined to comment on the severity of the contamination, saying only that she had concluded that the problem was beyond LAMP’s scope. She said she turned over results of soil testing by Hart Environmental Management Corp. of Orange County to the owner of the building.

LAMP received more than $2.3 million in grants and loans from the state, the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, banks and private agencies to buy and renovate the building. The program was to be sustained on rents from clients and several businesses, including a dry cleaner, on the ground floor.