The Schools Gain Ground

The Los Angeles Unified School District has finally prevailed in its long battle to buy the Ambassador Hotel and surrounding property for a new school. The last threat came from Alan Casden, a Beverly Hills real estate developer, who tried at the last minute to snatch the prime Mid-Wilshire site from the school district, which already had an agreement with the owners of the abandoned property and urgently needs to build more schools.

When Casden Properties couldn’t reach a deal with the owners, a judge ruled that the school district could buy the site. The LAUSD could close the deal as early as today for the bankrupt hotel, which never quite recovered after Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated there in 1968 during his presidential bid. Groundbreaking is expected to take place next year.

The neighborhood is so crowded that thousands of children, from kindergarten through high school, must be bused miles away from their closest schools. The grounds of the Ambassador, a 23.5-acre site, are especially attractive because the district could build one or more campuses for as many as 3,000 students without taking numerous apartment buildings and displacing hundreds of families in a city that has a severe shortage of affordable housing.

Casden’s proposal was to pay $15 million more than the price agreed to a month ago by the LAUSD and Wilshire Center Marketplace, the owners of the famous hotel. Was this an attempt to start a bidding war? If the school district had been forced to pay a higher price, the owners would have shared the increase with the developer. It’s legal, but it smacks of greed.

Casden’s lawyer on Wednesday told U.S Bankruptcy Judge Samuel L. Bufford that the threat of lawsuits from the LAUSD made the deal less attractive and the risk too great. At a Tuesday press conference, Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn warned the developer that he would face many hurdles, such as zoning changes, should he proceed. Hahn flexed his mayoral muscle on this issue, and it was good to see.

The district won this round, but does that mean the school will actually be built? Supt. Roy Romer on Wednesday said a key part of the LAUSD’s school building program was short on cash, while insisting that the shortfall wouldn’t affect the Ambassador site because construction will be financed with proceeds from bonds that may go on sale today.

The LAUSD got a break this week when Casden gave up his quest. Now the Mid-Wilshire area’s schoolchildren have to depend on the district to follow through on its promises. Given the school district’s record, it’s far too early to pop the champagne corks.