Chamber, LAUSD Study Demands on Property

Evidence abounds of ways, large and small, that business has come to the aid of academia. Be it growing numbers of internships and adopt-a-school programs or regionwide conferences on the business/education nexus, there are examples aplenty of ways business has shown its support for education.

But when the Los Angeles Unified School District announced early this month that it was looking at taking over parts of a struggling retail corridor, the outcry from some business leaders could be heard louder than the school bell for last period.

The corridor includes a Robinsons-May department store that company officials describe as “thriving”-- even though it’s the only store left in the Laurel Plaza shopping center.

Hoping to build on that store’s success, developer Arthur Sweet has spearheaded a drive to jump start retailing in Laurel Plaza and the nearby Valley Plaza, which includes a Sears store.

Sweet, who hopes to market the two as a “Twin Plaza” shopping district, already has collected 40 signatures from residents and business people on a petition opposing any takeover of the Robinsons-May site.

Although owners insist that the response should not be viewed as anti-education, it is at least one indication that it may not always be so easy for business to walk the walk.

“I don’t know whether it’s a test as much as a call to action, where you have to put your money where your mouth is,” said Larry Applebaum, president of the Universal City-North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, whose Major Business Advisory Committee has been pushing for the economic rebirth of the area.

“Is the business community really going to be willing to come forth and be a participant in a process that could hurt some members for the betterment of the area in the long run,” said Applebaum. “That’s the question.”

With many of the San Fernando Valley’s 17 high schools bursting at the seams, the LAUSD has been seeking space for two high schools, which it hopes to have built by 2006.

Earlier this month, school officials announced that the Robinsons-May site, a square configuration with easy freeway access, had become the preferred site after an earlier location failed to pass environmental muster.

And last week, the district announced that it has expanded the search to encompass all of the 55-acre Twin Plaza district, which also includes a former JCPenney store that has been vacant since the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

School board member Caprice Young, who is recommending that the full Board of Education approve a feasibility study of the site today, says the district will not need all that land, but wants to study different configurations within the parcel, which runs north along Laurel Canyon Boulevard from Oxnard to Archwood streets.

The matter was discussed at length at the Sept. 21 Chamber of Commerce board meeting.

Applebaum said there was a “very vocal faction” urging the chamber to take a position unequivocally supporting Robinsons-May, which has said in no uncertain terms that it prefers to stay put.

“There was much support in favor of the status quo, and telling LAUSD to move on and look someplace else,” said Applebaum.

But in a change from years past, and perhaps as an indication of the increased business/academic collegiality, the chamber did not take an immediate position and instead charged the chamber’s education committee, established earlier this year, with trying to come up with some “novel and unthought-of” approaches that could appeal to all parties.

In the past, Applebaum said, “It would have been a slam-dunk. We would have issued a position,” supporting local business.

“That’s a real pulse-taking of what’s going on within the business community, that it’s not a slam-dunk,” he added. “We recognize that we don’t operate in a vacuum.”

Even in this new era of collaboration, several businesspeople expressed concerns about the way the North Hollywood matter has been handled.

For example, both Robinsons-May and developer Ira Smedra, who is in escrow to buy the JCPenney site, complained of being blindsided by the plan, and learning of the district’s interest from Times reporters.

Still, Smedra said learning that the district has designs on the land will not derail his plans to convert the Penney’s and nearby properties into a new retail center.

“We hope to start construction in February or March,” he said, adding that he plans to announce some of his tenants before year’s end. “It’s a nice little project and it’ll help kick-start the whole revitalization of the area.”

To some business owners, that economic rebirth is at stake if the land is taken over by the school district.

Applebaum said that’s part of the reason he expects more businesses to join in trying to find a solution to the problem.

“If they take the Robinsons-May site, that does dramatically affect the thrust to create this dual shopping district,” said Applebaum. “It brings it home to all the area partners that they’re going to take the bull by the horn and come up with some proposals on their own or they’re going to be usurped by the government.

“The reality has hit home.”

The business community already has tossed out some ideas, and will no doubt proffer more at two meetings set for Thursday--the chamber’s own State of the Community lunch and a community meeting hosted by Young at the Walter Reed Middle School.

One suggestion was to create a magnet school, which might not require the same 25-acre tract as a regular high school. Another was to push legislators to help solve the problem.

The district is playing beat the clock because it risks losing millions in funding dollars from Proposition 1A, the largest school bond measure in California history, if it fails to identify potential school sites, purchase the land and draw architectural plans before a June 30 deadline.

Some business owners suggested pushing legislators to give the district more time. Young said that’s been tried.

“We would love to have that happen,” said Young. “We’ve been lobbying hard, to get the Legislature to change that deadline. They haven’t yet.”

OK, here’s an idea from me.

Two of the Valley’s major business organizations--the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley and the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn.--have established education committees. So do at least four chambers.

The school board could tap into these existing organizations and homeowner groups to create a working panel that could help the district identify sites that might create less of a firestorm of protest.

Young has acknowledged the need for more up-front community input.

As the need for new schools continues to grow, the district will undoubtedly need to look increasingly at property that either is or was commercial.

Young said the district wants to “get off industrial lands because they don’t pass environmentals.” Likewise, Young said, she’d prefer to avoid taking over homes, unless the residents ask to be moved.

That means that the Valley business community is likely to find itself having this conversation again and again. Will the bridges built through adopt-a-school programs and the like make all business immune from the threat of eminent domain seizure? Not likely. There’s too little land available and too much need.

Will that dialogue at least give business a voice? It must if the process is to avoid lengthy litigation.

“The business community has a lot at stake in this, no matter what transpires in this discussion,” said Applebaum. “I believe that [finding] available sites is going to involve business relocation somewhere down the line. This is not speculation, that’s reality,” he said.

“The solution to getting it done sooner rather than later is to get it done with consensus rather than conflict.”

Valley @ Work runs each Tuesday. Karen Robinson-Jacobs can be reached at Karen.Robinson@latimes.com.