Local News in Brief : Plant to Be Film Archive
The Beverly Hills City Council on Tuesday approved a 55-year lease that will allow the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to take over the former La Cienega Water Treatment Plant and convert the historic building into a film library and archive.
Bruce Davis, executive administrator of the academy, said the academy will spend more than $4 million to renovate the 60-year-old, 28,000-square-foot reinforced concrete, Spanish Colonial Revival-style building at La Cienega and Olympic boulevards. The academy also plans to build a 10,000-square-foot addition where filtration tanks currently are located.
The academy will move its Margaret Herrick Library from its Beverly Hills headquarters at 8949 Wilshire Blvd.
The historic waterworks was slated for demolition by the City Council last spring after a city staff report said years of corrosion had weakened the building, but a suit by a citizens’ group led to the building being spared.
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