SOUTH-CENTRAL : Center, School Sites Designated

After two years of planning and searching for a site, the city is moving closer to bringing a $2.5-million youth center and alternative high school to South-Central.

The Los Angeles City Council agreed last week to designate two municipal parking lots as surplus property which, along with a privately owned property the city is attempting to buy, can accommodate the new facilities. The parking lots, at the northeast corner of Manchester Boulevard and Vermont Avenue, will be turned over to the city’s Community Development Department, which is administering the project.

Funding for the center and school would come from a U.S. Department of Labor grant.

The center is to be part of the federally sponsored Youth Opportunities Unlimited Challenge, which is aimed at establishing facilities where youths can find job assistance, drug counseling, sex-education information, recreational programs and help in school. It will be run by a nonprofit agency that has yet to be selected, city officials said.

The alternative high school, planned to accommodate 150 students the first year and eventually 300, would be run by the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The program will target a three-square-mile area bounded by Manchester Avenue on the south, Florence Avenue on the north, and Central Avenue on the east and Vermont Avenue on the west.

The project was funded two years ago, but city officials said they have had difficulty finding a suitable and available site for the center and school. It was not until a vacant 32,000-square-foot property next to the city’s parking lots was recently put up for sale, they said, that the city found a place for the project.

“It’s significant in that we (have) a piece of property for a home,” said Gloria Moore, senior management analyst for the city’s Community Development Department.”Right now, we have no home.”

If all goes as planned, Moore said, officials hope to have a groundbreaking ceremony in two months.