WILSHIRE : $3 Million Awarded to Trump Associates

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge recently awarded $3 million in litigation expenses to Trump-Wilshire Associates in their court battle against the Los Angeles Unified School District, which stems from the district’s abandonment of plans to construct a Wilshire Corridor high school on the site of the Ambassador Hotel.

Judge Barnett Cooper awarded the sum to compensate Trump-Wilshire, managed in part by mega-developer Donald Trump, for legal expenses incurred in battling the school district after its 1990 condemnation of property Trump-Wilshire had bought a year earlier to develop.

After unsuccessfully trying to negotiate a sale, the school district condemned the building through eminent domain. But when Trump-Wilshire did not agree to the price the school district offered in the condemnation claim, the district abandoned plans to build the school in November, 1993. Last April, Trump-Wilshire filed a lawsuit for $100 million in damages, claiming it had lost a significant source of revenue by not being allowed to proceed with construction of a proposed mixed-use skyscraper project.

Although the plaintiffs see the award for legal expenses as a victory, it has no bearing on the lawsuit, which remains to be heard in court.

“When we abandoned (plans for a school), they were entitled to compensation,” acknowledged Rich Mason, an attorney for the school district. “But it’s a minor skirmish in a bigger war.” “

Bert Fields, an attorney representing Trump-Wilshire, said the developers received most of the compensation for legal fees they had asked for. The school district had originally hoped to settle on fees for a sum closer to $1 million.

Although the school district no longer has any interest in the property, Trump-Wilshire has not resumed its construction plans because, they say, the area around the hotel has become blighted and constructing now would lose money.

The school district’s argument is that even if construction had begun back in 1990, the project would have been a financial drain, given the downward-spiraling value of Wilshire Center real