Local News in Brief : Arts Center Finally Razed
Twenty-seven months after it was destroyed by fire, a city-owned performing arts center in the Los Feliz area was finally razed Tuesday.
A wrecking crew that was held in check first by the inching bureaucratic process and then by the discovery of asbestos in the Los Feliz Performing Arts Center, took only slightly more than an hour to reduce the building’s wing-like octagonal roof line into a mound of rubble.
City officials said they hope to build a replacement for the theater that for nearly a quarter of a century was a training hall for amateur and professional actors, children and senior citizens.
At an estimated cost of about $5 million, however, the project is not expected to be approved soon.
The demolition of the building, which burned in March, 1986, did not go to bid until that December, and the $9,000 project was not approved until August, said the winning contractor, Mike Blair.
The delay was compounded when Blair found asbestos in the shingles, which were removed by hand at a cost of about $50,000.
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