Historic House Will Be Used for Child Care : Family: City Council OKs purchase of building owned by Southwest Museum. Mt. Washington parents’ group wants to operate facility.

Culminating a two-year community effort to bring additional child care to Northeast Los Angeles, the City Council voted Friday to approve purchase of the Southwest Museum’s historic Ziegler House for conversion into a day-care center.

The Community Redevelopment Agency will buy the 89-year-old Craftsman-style building at 4601 Figueroa St. for $300,000. The sale is expected to close Friday, CRA officials said.

“We were delighted” with the vote, said Pat Griffith, treasurer of the Mt. Washington Preschool and Child Care Center Inc., which represents about 60 parents who live in Mt. Washington, Highland Park, Eagle Rock and Glassell Park.

The city has not yet selected an operator for the day-care center, said Diego Cardoso, planning deputy for Councilman Richard Alatorre. Cardoso said the city will seek bids for managing the center.

So far, the Mt. Washington group is the only organization that has expressed interest in managing the center, Cardoso said. The group, formed two years ago to promote child care, recently gained nonprofit status in order to be eligible to run a child-care center.

Members of the Mt. Washington group say they welcome any additional child care in the community but especially like the idea of a parent-run facility.

“We want a place where the parents feel empowered,” said Debra Vodhanel, a board member.

Parents who live in Mt. Washington complain about a lack of child care in the area, where at least one day-care center has a waiting list of 18 families.

Griffith, who lives in Mt. Washington, said she used to make a 20-minute commute twice a day to a child-care center in Pasadena before her daughter entered primary school.

“It’s quite a shock as a parent to find that there isn’t an adequate preschool structure for working parents,” she said.

The city’s “objective is to get the community involved, to involve the parents,” said Cardoso, who has worked extensively with members of the Mt. Washington group. He said the city also had a commitment to preserve the Ziegler House, a local historic landmark.

The museum bought the two-story Ziegler House in 1960, intending to use it as a gallery, but instead relegated it to storage and staff housing. The house was vacated last month.

The residents recently identified the Ziegler House as an ideal child-care site but almost lost the chance to acquire it.

According to a CRA report, the house was sold in January to Keystone Housing Properties, which planned to turn it into a transitional housing facility.

Alatorre intervened and asked the CRA to consider its use as a day-care site instead.

Under a plan approved by the CRA board in March, Keystone agreed to back out of the deal, leaving the CRA as the buyer. The agency will turn the property over to the city--either the Department of Recreation and Parks or the Community Development Department--to oversee its operation.