Wrecking Ball

Owners of the old Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles filed plans to demolish the landmark building on Wilshire Boulevard to make way for a $436-million project containing more than 2,000 apartments and a mall. The property has been mired in bankruptcy proceedings and a 10-year legal dispute between the current owner and the Los Angeles Unified School District, which wants to build a high school on the site. The owner, Wilshire Center Marketplace, is also battling preservationists, who want to keep the hotel intact. The ownership group put the Ambassador in bankruptcy in August to block the school district’s plans to foreclose. The bankruptcy proposal said a development team has made a $50-million commitment to the project.