Otis Art School Calls Off Alliance With Museum : Culture: College decides not to lease shuttered May Co. building from LACMA. It is buying a Westchester building instead.

Citing practical problems and a more attractive option, Otis College of Art and Design has called off its proposed marriage to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The museum in May tentatively agreed to lease space to the art school in the museum’s vacant May Co. facility in the Mid-Wilshire district, but Otis officials now say the expense of renovating the former department store and the museum’s failure to provide sufficient parking make the scheme unworkable.

“We both tried very hard to make this work, but in the final analysis, the issues were insurmountable,” Elaine M. Goldsmith, Otis’ chairwoman of the board, said in a statement released by the college Thursday.

The school--located on county-owned property near MacArthur Park--has entered into escrow to purchase a seven-story building on a 4 1/2-acre site at 9045 Lincoln Blvd. in Westchester. Unlike the 57-year-old May Co. facility, which would have cost an estimated $15 million to renovate, the Westchester building--constructed in 1968 as IBM’s regional headquarters--can be purchased and adapted to the school’s needs for about $5 million. Otis, which has $5 million in hand from a fund-raising campaign for improvements on its current site, expects to be at the new campus next fall.

William A. Mingst, president of LACMA’s board of trustees, said the museum could meet Otis’ parking requirements for up to five years, but not beyond that because both institutions hope to expand. Otis--which intends to increase its student body from 720 to 1,200--had planned to take over about two-thirds of the 290,000-square-foot May Co. building on a 30-year lease with two 10-year options.

The proposed partnership was hailed as a beneficial step for both arts institutions and a major development in the revitalization of Wilshire’s “Miracle Mile.” Both parties signed a letter of intent, ending speculation about how the museum might best use the 1939 landmark building at Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue. The museum purchased the building in March, 1994, with $25 million of interim county funding. May Co. closed its doors in early 1993 after the firm merged with Robinson’s.

The agreement would have provided LACMA with much-needed revenue and a prestigious tenant that could have enhanced the museum’s educational role.

“I wish them well,” museum President Andrea Rich said of Otis.

Having just assumed her newly created position Nov. 1, she declined to guess how the space might be used, but said the museum is beginning a strategic planning process that will include education and exhibition possibilities.

“We will study the entire museum with fresh eyes,” Rich said.

Moving next door to LACMA would have heightened Otis’ stature by allowing it to join an elite league of colleges that are associated with museums, most notably the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

“That could have been an enormous benefit,” said Mark Denton, vice president of development and college relations at Otis.

But the Westchester location offers proximity to Loyola Marymount University, Southern California Institute of Architecture and the Venice/Santa Monica art scene, he said.

“It puts us in a community of art-making, rather than art history.”

Otis now occupies about 125,000 square feet of space in a combination of county-owned property and privately leased facilities. The school will continue to use the county property for programs still to be announced. Originally called Otis Art Institute, the school was founded in 1918 on property deeded to the county in 1916 by Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, founder of the Los Angeles Times.