L.A. Unified Nearing Deals on Land for New High Schools

The Los Angeles school district has identified sites for 15 new high schools and officials say they are confident they have secured the land for more than half of them.

After months of quiet efforts to nail down land for badly needed new high schools, negotiators for the Los Angeles Unified School District are closing in on two deals that may be announced as early as next week, officials said Friday.

The district already owns or has agreements to buy four other properties and is talking to willing sellers on several others.

If all 15 of the schools are completed, they would add about 23,000 new seats, roughly the minimum number needed to accommodate every high school student when enrollment peaks in 2006. Every high school would still be required to convert to a multitrack calendar.

The high school plans are part of an expansion program that envisions construction of 26 elementary schools, seven middle schools and dozens of primary centers.

Securing land for high schools is often most difficult because they require bigger parcels. The district appears to be having greater success than in the past, in part because it has scaled back the size of the proposed high schools. The largest school in the new plan would accommodate fewer than 3,000 students; most Los Angeles high schools enroll more than 3,000.

The two deals expected to be reached next week involve properties in the eastern San Fernando Valley that only recently appeared to be heading toward private development.

District officials said they have come to terms with developer Dan Selleck, who owns the former Carnation Ice Cream plant in Van Nuys.

Only last month Selleck obtained Los Angeles Planning Commission approval to build a commercial warehouse on the 18.2-acre property, located at Van Nuys Boulevard and Lanark Street.

District negotiators have persuaded Selleck that a school is the ideal use and that the district could move swiftly to make a deal, said Kathi Littmann, director of new school planning.

Selleck, however, would not confirm that he has agreed to sell.

“We are continuing to try to cooperate with LAUSD, and we are conducting ongoing negotiations, but no definitive agreement has been reached,” he said.

Supt. Roy Romer personally conducted the negotiation that has secured an agreement to purchase the Department of Water and Power building in Sun Valley, near Polytechnic High School, a district official said.

DWP general manager S. David Freeman gave Romer a tour, and the two executives formed a quick bond, said Romer spokeswoman Stephanie Brady.

They agreed the district would buy the multistory building at Roscoe Boulevard and Arleta Avenue and lease a portion to the DWP, which will maintain some operations there. The school will be an academy program attached to Polytechnic. Students will engage in internships with DWP staff.

“Romer loves anything that introduces kids into real work environments,” Brady said.

Several of the proposed schools would serve a densely populated area near downtown, which was dealt a blow when the school board decided to abandon plans for the Belmont Learning Complex.

But two of the primary Belmont alternatives, involving Dodger Stadium and the former Ambassador Hotel, present the district with its biggest hurdles.

The Los Angeles Dodgers adamantly oppose the district’s current plan to buy two parking lots next to the Chavez Ravine stadium. Although the district could take the land by eminent domain, there may be an alternative, said Edwin Van Ginkel, a district official negotiating with the team.

Van Ginkel said he is exploring a more complex transaction that would include two other lots that are farther from the stadium and a training facility owned by the Los Angeles Fire Department.

“It’s our understanding that [the Fire Department land] is not large enough for their long-term needs,” Van Ginkel said.

Meanwhile, the district’s attempt to take the Ambassador Hotel through foreclosure has been tied up in court since the owner declared bankruptcy earlier this year. Van Ginkel said attorneys for the district estimate the proceeding could last about a year.

Regardless of whether the district acquires the Dodger Stadium and Ambassador properties, the proposals to build schools at both locations have already aroused strong opposition of neighborhood and business groups.

Negotiations appear to be moving rapidly toward conclusion on four other sites. These are a parcel next to Orthopaedic Hospital downtown, a parcel on the Cal State-Northridge campus, a former dairy processing plant in South Los Angeles and the headquarters of Eller Media, an advertising agency southwest of downtown. Each involves willing sellers, but issues remain, including price, Van Ginkel said.

The district is also attempting to work out an arrangement with the Los Angeles Community College District, which would provide part of the campus of East Los Angeles College for a high school.

The district owns two sites, the downtown headquarters at Grand Avenue and Cesar Chavez Avenue and Accelerated Charter School. It has an option to buy an industrial site in South Gate at Tweedy Boulevard and Alameda Street and is in escrow to buy the site at Washington Boulevard and Vermont Avenue.

Negotiations are moving more slowly for a former Gemco site at Van Nuys Boulevard and Beachy Avenue and land at Chandler and Lankershim boulevards in North Hollywood.

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Proposed Sites for High Schools

The Los Angeles school district has identified sites for 15 new high schools. Officials say they are close to closing deals for several of the properties and are in negotiations on others

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Times staff writer Hilary MacGregor contributed to this article.