District Approves Plan for Elementary School : * Education: Two aging schools nearby will close. The board hopes the new building will attract students to the area.

The board of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District approved a $10-million plan this week to build an elementary school in Ocean Park, paving the way for the closing of two aging, under-used schools in the neighborhood.

“It will be like a shot in the arm, something new, clear and wonderful that the community can buy into because they have helped plan it and they were involved in the decision to actually create it,” board member Peggy Lyons said at Monday’s meeting.

The school, designed for 660 students and expected to cost about $7.5 million, will combine student enrollment from John Muir Elementary School and the Santa Monica Alternative School House (SMASH) at a Los Amigos Park site. Other parts of the plan approved Monday include extensive renovations to the Muir school to convert it to other district uses, and improvements at other district-owned properties in the area.

Board member Michael Hill said he believed the new building will increase enrollment in the district by improving the image of Ocean Park schools. It also will make room for new district-wide programs such as adult education and continuation high school, he said.

Developer fees and money from a $75-million bond issue approved by voters last fall will provide from $6.8 to $8.1 million for the project, Hill said. The district also plans to sell or lease part of the Muir site to a developer for a condominium project that school officials believe will generate about $4.2 million for the district.

Board members estimated that the new school will open in three or four years. They and committee representatives expressed relief that the final plan did not include an earlier proposal to create a second condominium development at the former Washington School site on 4th Street, now the location of several child-care facilities.

“That area of Ocean Park is very densely populated,” said Sigrid Still, a member of the Ocean Park Steering Committee, a neighborhood group that put together the school construction and development proposal. “One of the things that’s absolutely needed is more open space. The steering committee was opposed to any development there, the community was opposed to any development there and it is a perfect place for child care.”

Lyons said she also did not favor development of the Washington School site.

“This is not a good time in terms of the economy to do big development, and . . . the citizens around that area were opposed to development there. So this plan is more compatible with everyone,” Lyons said.