Department Store Is Considered as Possible Site for High School : Education: L.A. Unified is weighing purchase of Robinsons-May location as a new campus to relieve East Valley overcrowding.

With environmental problems plaguing its preferred site, the Los Angeles Unified School District is considering acquiring a Robinsons-May department store as a location for a high school to relieve overcrowding in the east San Fernando Valley.

If necessary, school officials said Wednesday, the district would consider using eminent domain for the operating department store and parking lot on 24.7 acres. They called the site ideal for a high school because it would not require taking any homes, raises no immediate environmental concerns and--unlike other sites sought by the district--has some community support.

Bob Niccum, the school district’s director of real estate and asset management, said that if acquired, the building probably would have to be torn down for seismic safety reasons to make way for a new school.

“Clearly, this is not a done deal,” said Caprice Young, the Los Angeles school board member who proposed the site after meeting with North Hollywood residents in her district. “But the possibility is there.”

Niccum said Robinsons-May is “aware of our interest, but it’s too early to get a reading on their reaction.”

Milinda Martin, a spokeswoman for Robinsons-May, said she was unaware of the district’s interest in the store--at 6160 Laurel Canyon Blvd.--which also houses the company’s regional administrative offices. “From our end, that is a rumor we have not heard” until contacted by The Times, Martin said.

Martin added the district may have contacted executives at May Department Stores, the St. Louis-based parent company. Officials in St. Louis could not be reached late Wednesday.

At a Los Angeles Board of Education committee meeting next week, district officials will recommend that a feasibility study be conducted on the department store, which opened in 1955 and has about 800 retail and administrative employees.

The district had initially considered building a high school on a gravel pit in Sun Valley, but plans were stopped when tests revealed environmental risks. The proposed school would ease overcrowding at North Hollywood and Francis Polytechnic high schools, which have a combined enrollment of 7,200 students.

Officials hope to build 100 schools in some of the city’s densest neighborhoods districtwide by 2008, when enrollment is expected to swell to 776,150 from the current 700,000.

Because plans for the high school at the Robinsons-May site are at an early stage, Niccum said, it is unclear how many students it would serve, how it would be constructed and how much it would cost the district to relocate a major department store.

“We’re in uncharted waters,” Niccum said. “We have not proposed something like this before.”

The department store, rated by company officials as a “good performer,” is all that’s left of Laurel Plaza, a shopping complex destroyed in the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

For years, developers have eyed the site, but city officials said they have received no formal plans.

“We realize that the school district is looking at many sites,” said Tom Henry, a spokesman for Los Angeles Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents the area. “It’s an ongoing process.”

Henry said the city was aware of the school district’s interest in Robinsons-May but that not enough details are known to comment in depth. “My understanding is that the Robinsons-May does very well and would like to stay put,” he said.