Police Say They Need Bigger Headquarters : City government: Council will be asked to consider razing Parker Center and to buy and renovate a building for more City Hall offices.

The Los Angeles City Council will be asked today to approve the purchase and renovation of a three-story building near City Hall for additional office space and to consider razing the present Parker Center police headquarters and City Hall South.

The actions stem from the fatal First Interstate Bank Tower fire of May 4, 1988, which led city officials and the Fire Department to order the installation of sprinkler systems in several city office buildings.

The council today is expected to approve a committee report calling for the $23-million acquisition and renovation of a three-story warehouse at 212 N. Vignes St. for relocation of offices during the sprinkler installation, which will require extensive asbestos removal.

The report also asks for deletion of Parker Center and City Hall South from the fire sprinkler program, while a plan to install temporary sprinklers is drawn up.

City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie said: “Parker Center and City Hall South will have to go sometime. They are too small and inefficient. We might have to ask for a bond issue as early as next November to replace them.”

City officials began considering plans to raze the two buildings after learning that estimates for fitting them with permanent sprinkler systems had escalated from the original $10 million to between $20 million and $50 million.

Comrie said he expects the Fire Department and others to come in with a plan today for temporary sprinkler systems at only a quarter of the cost of permanent sprinklers.

Top police officials support the idea of eliminating the 35-year-old police headquarters at 150 N. Los Angeles St., named after the late Police Chief William H. Parker.

Cmdr. Matthew Hunt, in charge of support services for the LAPD, told United Press International: “We are desperately in need of a new police headquarters. We have totally outgrown the building.”

Although the Parker Center complex occupies a full city block, the building has only 80,000 square feet and Comrie and others have said the space could be more efficiently used for other buildings, or even green space.

Hunt said the LAPD needs about 400,000 square feet for its headquarters. He said preliminary plans for a new facility should be ready in a few months, but as of yet, no site, including the present one, has been discussed.

“Those buildings (Parker Center and City Hall South, across the way at 111 E. 1st St.) were built to last 30 years and they’re now 35 years old,” Hunt said.

The “Glass House,” as Parker Center has been nicknamed by prisoners and the public alike, “is a very valuable piece of property and it is totally under-utilized,” Hunt said. “Even when it was first built, there was a shortage of cash and it was much smaller than originally intended.