Nunez Backs Ambassador Hotel Compromise

A compromise plan for building badly needed schools on the site of the Ambassador Hotel won over a prominent friend Friday: state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez.

At a news conference at the jampacked Berendo Middle School, Nunez made it clear that his first choice would be for the Los Angeles Unified School District, which owns the property, to level the historic hotel altogether.

But the Los Angeles Democrat said he had decided to embrace a plan backed by Supt. Roy Romer and school board President Jose Huizar that would preserve parts of the hotel while leveling others for a 4,200-student school complex.

The plan, known as Heritage K-12, “is the best way to proceed with this project without delay,” Nunez said as some of Berendo’s students waved “Room to Grow” signs behind him and Huizar, who joined the legislator at the news conference.

“It balances the needs of these kids with respect for the historical and cultural heritage of the site, and reuses these historical features to improve the educational opportunities at the school,” said Nunez, who worked for Romer as the district’s lobbyist from 2000 to 2002.

Since its release two weeks ago, the plan has drawn fire from both sides in the debate over the fate of the storied hotel. The Ambassador drew some of Hollywood’s top acts to its Cocoanut Grove nightclub and hosted many prominent guests. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in its kitchen pantry after winning the California Democratic presidential primary in 1968. The hotel closed in 1989 after falling on hard times.

Romer’s plan would demolish virtually the entire hotel and its outbuildings, preserving only the Cocoanut Grove and the Paul Williams-designed coffee shop beneath it. Parts of the Embassy Ballroom would be incorporated into a library. A committee would be appointed to decide how to preserve the assassination site.

Members of Kennedy’s family, including his widow, Ethel, and seven of his children, have opposed saving any part of the hotel. Maxwell Kennedy, a son who lives in Los Angeles, said this week that he intended to lobby Romer and each of the seven school board members before the board’s scheduled Oct. 12 vote on the hotel’s fate.

Preservationists said the plan would not save enough of what they see as the historically and educationally valuable hotel; those who want the kindergarten-through-12th-grade schools built as soon as possible decry the time and expense the plan would entail. About $15 million of the $318.2 million earmarked for the schools would go toward preserving or re-creating parts of the hotel.

Nunez challenged the Los Angeles Conservancy, which has led the battle to save the main building and convert it to classrooms, to “come to the table” with money for preservation, and urged both sides to “set aside their differences and allow the school board to proceed with this proposal.”

Ken Bernstein, director of preservation issues for the conservancy, said his organization had been working to procure up to $40 million in tax credits. The district’s apparent lack of interest in saving much of the hotel, however, has dampened enthusiasm among potential donors.

“We have compromised and compromised and compromised,” Bernstein said, referring to the conservancy’s agreement to sacrifice the hotel’s bungalows, cabanas and other features. He said the conservancy and others continue to push for saving the main hotel building.

“It’s not about choosing between needed school seats and historic preservation,” Bernstein said. “We really can accommodate both.”

But Huizar said he hoped Nunez’s support would “encourage others to come forward and be a part of history in the making.”

Though at least two of the board members oppose the plan, Huizar said he was optimistic that a majority would “see the merits of this plan” by the time the board votes.

Joining Huizar and Nunez, some Berendo students provided a glimpse of what life is like in the crowded, largely Latino neighborhoods near the Ambassador. About 900 sixth- through eighth-graders must be bused from their homes near Berendo, five blocks south of the hotel site. Even so, the school operates on a year-round schedule with three tracks that subtract 17 days from the academic year to squeeze in 3,200 students.

Sixth-grader Franklin Lee, who could attend high school at the Ambassador site if the complex opens on time, in 2008, looks forward to more spacious, quieter classrooms.

Seventh-grader Luz Cruz wants to go to school with friends who now are bused to distant campuses with more room -- and she dreams that students no longer will have to share lockers.

“Sometimes things get stolen,” Luz said, “and nobody likes that.”