Contract for New High School OKd

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday awarded a contract to build a 1,713-seat high school in downtown Los Angeles, despite a price tag $18 million higher than school district officials had planned for.

Now dubbed Central Los Angeles Area High School No. 10, the campus at 3rd and Bixel streets is part of an ambitious plan to build 120 schools in 10 years and will be among the first high schools constructed in the district in three decades.

The builders, LA School Developers LLC and Clark Construction Group, are to construct classroom buildings clad in glass or curved metal and an athletic complex including playing fields, gymnasiums and an Olympic-size outdoor pool at a cost not to exceed $85.15 million.

Two other high schools on the drawing board in the long-overcrowded area, including problem-plagued Belmont, will share the athletic facilities.

Officials said they can find room for the added costs in their massive school construction budget without jeopardizing other projects. The money would come from construction bond funds. They also said they would work with developers to reduce construction costs.

Joseph Mehula, who oversees the district’s construction programs, said the costs rose because of market conditions in construction and the difficult topography of the site, which has steep hills. But, he said, there was no point in rebidding the project because it would delay the opening of the school for up to two years and there would be no guarantee it could be done for less.

The school is to be finished by March 2006.

The board also awarded a contract for construction of a $46-million high school in the east San Fernando Valley.

At the same meeting, parents and students from Los Angeles’ Eastside charged that the district had dragged its feet in finding a site for a new campus in their neighborhood, which is served by overcrowded Garfield High School.