School district to lease out Linda Vista campus

The former campus of Linda Vista Elementary School will go up for lease later this year, potentially forcing the closure of a neighborhood park and the eviction of a popular preschool.

The Pasadena Board of Education voted unanimously on Tuesday to declare the campus a surplus property, triggering a call for bids that could begin as soon as May 8.

Linda Vista Park would close and Linda Vista Children’s Center could be ordered to leave on June 22 at the earliest, but Pasadena Unified School District Chief Finance Officer John Pappalardo said officials are unlikely to move that quickly.

Residents of the Linda Vista neighborhood had urged school board members to delay the lease process.

“We feel very insecure and uncertain,” said Nina Chomsky, a member of Friends of Linda Vista Park and the Linda Vista/Annandale Assn.

Chomsky and others are pushing for a deal that would guarantee residents at least some use of the two-acre former school playground. Schools officials shuttered the Linda Vista campus in 2006 due to declining enrollment and the site became a city-maintained park in 2008.

Before seeking private bids, the school district must first weigh proposals from other public agencies.

Some Pasadena City Council members have expressed interest in leasing at least part of the campus in order to save the park.

“It’s an important asset for the community,” said City Manager Michael Beck. “I’m definitely not opposed to consider contributing dollars toward the utilization of a neighborhood park.”

But the city is short on cash, facing a $6 million hole in its $216 million General Fund budget.

School board members say they’re open to preserving the park, but only if the city is willing to make up the difference for reducing the property’s total market value.

“With the huge cuts we’ve seen in the state budget, our responsibility is to generate local revenue,” said school board member Ed Honowitz. “We can’t subsidize park space. We need every dollar for our academic programs.”

The school district faces a deficit of at least $11.5 million next year under the governor’s latest budget proposal.

Linda Vista Children’s Center Board President Scott Weaver said the nonprofit preschool may want to lease the entire property and hopes to work with city officials on a joint plan including the park.

“We feel the children’s center, in combination with the park, represents the highest and best use for the site,” said Weaver.

The children’s center pays the school district $60,000 per year to park five temporary classrooms in a parking lot area. The public elementary school buildings have been vacant since 2006 and are in need of up to $3 million in repairs, Pappalardo has said.

A 2010 study by a Los Angeles real estate firm estimated the 4.9-acre campus’ annual lease value at more than $450,000 if housing units were built there, but housing isn’t an option unless the city makes a zoning change.

The children’s center, park advocates and the school district are seeking new appraisals.

School board member Ramon Miramontes said the city — which set aside more than $6 million to acquire the long-vacant YWCA building —should consider leasing the park.

“The city marshals millions for a dilapidated property that doesn’t belong to them … because it has certain intrinsic value. I wish the city would give that much value to open space,” he said.

Beck said the city would use different funds to lease and operate a park than it would to acquire property. The city spent nearly $2 million in July 2009 to establish Annandale Canyon Open Space Park on the city’s western border with Glendale.

Anita Fromholz, a Linda Vista resident who represents Pasadena on the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy Advisory Committee, said she wants to see school and city officials collaborate.

“We all realize the financial constraints the city and the school district are working under right now, but we certainly hope [they] can work together to come up with a solution,” she said.