New Lease on Life for Bullocks Wilshire : Landmarks: Law school plans to use the old department store for a library and offices.

Where lingerie used to be for sale in the Bullocks Wilshire department store, there soon may be books on U.S. Supreme Court precedents. Where fine china had been displayed until the Art Deco landmark closed in April, volumes of California tort cases may be shelved. Where models once paraded in evening gowns, anxious law students may cram for exams.

Unusual changes of that sort are in the works as a result of an agreement announced Wednesday for Southwestern University School of Law to take over the neighboring and shuttered Bullocks Wilshire store for use as a library and offices. School officials promised to maintain the architectural details that have made the structure so beloved among shoppers and preservationists since it opened on Wilshire Boulevard in 1929.

“It is a significant architectural treasure and our being involved in it really places a good deal of our identity with the building. The stewardship we show toward the building is going to reflect upon us,” said Leigh Taylor, dean of the 1,150-student law school, which will keep its classrooms in facilities less than a block away from the store.

Taylor said Southwestern signed a letter of intent to purchase the remaining 39 years of a lease that the bankrupt R.H. Macy & Co. has on the building. The bankruptcy court overseeing Macy’s affairs in New York must approve the lease sale.

Taylor declined to disclose the cost of the sale other than that it was below the $5-million asking price. The school will undertake at least $6 million in repairs, such as fixing the leaking roof, and in library adaptations over the next 18 months before moving in its 340,000-volume collection, Taylor added.

In New York, Macy’s spokeswoman Laura Mellilo confirmed that the letter of intent had been signed but declined further comment.

Although some would have preferred another upscale retailer in the building, cultural and architectural leaders in Los Angeles greeted the announcement warmly. They had worried about finding a reliable tenant before decay set in at the five-story building, topped with a copper-clad tower and containing rose marble walls and Moderne-style murals. Concerns heightened last month after Macy’s removed some chandeliers and fixtures, possibly breaking local landmark protection law.

“I’m very pleased that we will have a respectful and respectable tenant,” said Angelo Pacella, a businessman who heads a task force for the building’s preservation.

La Curacao, an Olympic Boulevard store that carries appliances, jewelry and cameras, also wanted the lease. But that plan required installing escalators in Bullocks Wilshire, a possible problem in a landmark setting. La Curacao’s owner could not be reached to comment on a possible challenge in the New York bankruptcy court.

Bullocks Wilshire, which became part of Macy’s I. Magnin chain in 1988, was an elegant anchor for the once-fashionable Wilshire area. Southwestern hopes the takeover will help the neighborhood and give the school a more visible location. Several influential alumni, including former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, reportedly lobbied for the agreement, as did area Councilman Nate Holden.

The school expects to use the first two floors, the most elaborately decorated, as a library and have offices above. The famous marble hall where perfume was sold will be set aside for exhibits about the store’s history, and the building will be kept open to the public as much as possible, Taylor said.

Southwestern is talking with Caltech, which owns the property, about an outright purchase that would ensure control beyond the lease. Meanwhile, talks continue on the city’s demand that Macy’s return the missing fixtures.