Ambassador Hotel-a Site to Behold : Trump: The developer rejects Bradley’s request to scale back his plans and help the city’s poorer areas. Meanwhile, the school district is devising strategies to claim the property.

In a rebuff to Mayor Tom Bradley, Manhattan developer Donald Trump said Monday that he may go ahead with plans to construct the world’s tallest building in Los Angeles and may make it 300 feet taller than he originally suggested.

Trump rejected a request by Bradley that he limit the scale of the development, planned for the site of the Ambassador Hotel. The developer also rejected Bradley’s Friday suggestion that he help finance commercial developments in poorer areas of the city.

“We’re not looking to developing industrial parks all over,” Trump said in a telephone interview. He said his only interest in Los Angeles is in the Ambassador Hotel project.

“If at any time people in Los Angeles would want me to do something that I don’t want to do, or I don’t think is in the best interest of the area, I can always pull out,” Trump said.

A week ago, Trump announced plans that apparently would lead to the demolition of the historic Mid-Wilshire area hotel as part of a huge commercial and residential redevelopment project expected to cost more than $1 billion.

At the time, Trump indicated that his plans might include construction of a 125-story building, the world’s tallest.

Bradley, who joined Trump at a press conference on Jan. 13, said later that a building of that size would be inappropriate for the Mid-Wilshire location.

Trump also has run into resistance from officials of the Los Angeles Unified School District, who want to build a 2,000-student high school on the site, which is nearly 24 acres. Officials have said they may use condemnation powers to acquire the site if Trump persists in his plan.

However, Trump said Monday it is now unlikely that the school district will be able to come up with enough money to purchase the site.

He said he and the other investors involved in the project have received an offer of $115 million for the site, almost twice the $63 million they paid for it.

“That really puts the school board to rest totally,” Trump said.

Trump said he had turned down the offer, which came from “a very substantial group of investors.”

Trump refused to identify the potential buyers, but a source said the offer came from a group of Japanese investors.

Whether the offer would have any effect on the school district’s plans was unclear Monday.

Bonnie James, a district administrator, said school officials had not been informed of the offer and had no response to Trump’s claim.

A price set for land in a condemnation proceeding “would have to be more than just an offer,” James said. It would have to be “a realistic value” for the property based on appraisals, he said. Any dispute over the price would be settled by the courts, he said.

Trump said Monday he is getting “mixed signals” from politicians in Los Angeles but has received “lots of letters from people who want to see this area developed and want it developed by us.”

He said the building he is contemplating would be 300 feet taller than a 125-story skyscraper approved by the Chicago City Council last Friday. The new Chicago building--developed by the Chicago firm of Miglin-Beitler and designed by Cesar Pelli of the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood--would be the world’s tallest, surpassing the Sears Tower in Chicago by 15 stories.

“It could be spectacular for Los Angeles, a great opportunity for Los Angeles,” Trump said. “I think it would be a great focal point for Los Angeles.”

He said the developers will be hiring architects over the next four to five weeks and will develop a proposal within two to three months.

Bradley had no comment Monday regarding Trump’s statements, said Bill Chandler, the mayor’s press secretary. “The mayor has made his position clear,” Chandler said.

However, Councilman Nate Holden, in whose district the project will be built, said at a news conference that he is concerned that Trump is getting mixed signals from Los Angeles.

“We want him to know that we want him to come to Los Angeles,” Holden said. “We want him to know that he can help us provide for our future growth and development. That’s important.”

A high school would “certainly destroy that commercial community for all time,” Holden said of the Mid-Wilshire area.

Trump is believed to have bought a 20% interest in Wilshire Center Partners, the owners of the Ambassador property. The partnership has been renamed Trump Wilshire Associates, with Trump as the managing partner.

The fate of the Ambassador Hotel is critical to the planned restoration of the Mid-Wilshire business district, whose importance as a commercial center has been overshadowed in recent years by downtown Los Angeles and areas farther west on Wilshire Boulevard.

The Ambassador site is one of the last large open spaces available for development in urban Los Angeles.