L.A. Unified Considers Sale of Headquarters

The Los Angeles Unified School District will consider selling or developing its nine-acre administrative complex just north of Downtown as part of a long-range plan to consolidate offices and generate funds for building and maintaining schools.

The proposal was prompted by the discovery last fall that the district’s Business Services Center, a three-building complex in the garment district south of Downtown, would not be safe in a strong quake.

Instead of leasing space just for the 900 people who work in that building, district officials decided to study the possibility of finding an office large enough for all administrative functions. Besides the nine-acre complex, the district occupies several sites it owns and several buildings it leases scattered across the Downtown area.

District spokesman Bill Rivera said the school board will be asked Monday to give administrators emergency powers to move the relocation plan forward.

Rivera said the business center and an older building on 17th Street, which also houses administrators, probably will be razed and the lots sold or leased for development. That would help cover the relocation costs.

A board committee next month will consider the longer-range plan to consolidate all administrative offices.