BELMONT LEARNING CENTER RESURRECTION 10 YEARS AND $300 MILLION LATER, END MAY BE IN SIGHT.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

Construction on the Belmont Learning Center - long the languishing symbol of Los Angeles Unified's failures - soon will be restarted after years of delay even as the costs for the nation's most expensive school have soared to close to $300 million.

Built without adequate safety measures atop a century-old oil field and an earthquake fault, Belmont was officially abandoned and then resurrected by Superintendent Roy Romer, although some buildings had to be torn down and extensive studies conducted.

Now with the price tag double the original figure, the district has received three bids to complete the existing buildings and erect two new buildings for an estimated $111 million. The bids are expected to be opened later this month. Construction could begin in late November or early December, with the school to be completed in about two years - a decade after its 1997 groundbreaking.

The bids mark the final step in the star-crossed project - twice killed by the school board - that has made the school the nation's costliest, racking up $15.8 million in debt service and millions in other costs as contractors have wrestled with a legacy of environmental problems.

``It became the white whale for me,'' Romer said in an interview this week at the site, referring to the epic story of ``Moby Dick.''

``Everybody drove by (the site) and said, 'That's a mark of failure for this district.' I wanted to prove we could finally cure this series of errors ... I feel a sense of satisfaction that we overcame the difficulty and we're going to make it happen.''

But the center, renamed Vista Hermosa, faces a vastly different educational landscape than when it was envisioned more than a decade ago.

While Romer says Belmont is still needed, the once under-served downtown core now is flush with several new high schools completed or under way as part of a $15 billion districtwide construction and renovation program.

And it remains to be seen how bidders propose remediating the potentially explosive methane and deadly hydrogen sulfide rising from the oil field at the site, which was purchased for $60 million in 1992 without extensive environmental testing despite a state report four years earlier detailing its dangers.

Don Mullinax, the district's former inspector general who is now a partner at Deloitte, said he thinks the school is likely to be ``a can of worms all over again.''

``Who knows what they'll find under the surface of the ground once they start digging and disturb it; the stuff is still moving around,'' he said.

Originally planned as four academies for about 5,000 students on a year- round schedule, the school was pitched as a model of innovation as a public-private partnership at a ``guaranteed price'' of $86 million.

The project now is expected to cost about $223 million - not including the cost of the land - and is to be split into seven ``small learning communities'' for 2,600 students on a two-semester schedule.

By 1999, state toxics officials had partially stopped construction amid concerns that adequate testing hadn't been done on the environmental risks and that it lacked a mitigation system to get rid of any gases collecting under the partially-completed buildings.

In a scathing report that year, Mullinax said Belmont exposed massive wrongdoing and a cancer of incompetence at the district, which eventually led to the board's decision to buy out the contract of then-Supt. Ruben Zacarias.

By 2001, the site was designated a ``crime scene'' by District Attorney Steve Cooley as he investigated possible environmental crimes, concluding in 2003 that while none was committed Belmont was ``a public works disaster of biblical proportions.''

``Obviously there were great mistakes made here,'' said Romer, who took over the district in July 2000. ``When I came, the issue was, Do you abandon it, or do you finish it ... and I chose to finish it.''

Romer began looking at options for Belmont immediately, at one point suggesting that the parking garage could be opened up and a fan installed to blow out any gases that rose from the oil field. At another point, he suggested the site be turned into a charter school.

About three years ago, Romer announced he was quitting his crusade to build the school as originally envisioned because of the earthquake fault - but after more testing he concluded that the answer was to tear down two buildings accounting for about 90,000 square feet, and to replace them with two new buildings occupying about 110,000 square feet.

The district now plans to renovate existing buildings - including a triple gym, lockers and three academies to be converted into six small learning communities, each with its own administrative staff.

A new academy housing the main administration and a complex with a multipurpose room, auditorium, cafeteria, library and student union will be constructed.

An open space between the buildings, and playing fields, are included in the plan.

Senior project manager Rick Hijazi, who works for the downtown firm CCG/Harris, said a $300,000 contract was awarded this month to Miller Environmental to repair any damage in the existing buildings before renovations start.

The $111 million estimated to complete the school includes an approximately $9 million mitigation system, which is envisioned to include an impermeable plastic liner beneath the buildings and pipes to collect and release the gases outside the building.

The plan is backed up with gas monitors and alarms that could flush fresh air into the buildings if gas enters; in open areas and a playing field, an 18-inch layer of sand beneath an 18-inch layer of soil would vent gases.

The design is about 60 percent complete, but far enough along that companies can include it in their bid, said Hamid Saebfar, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control division chief of school property evaluation and cleanup.

About 10 percent, or $11 million, of the final budget already has been spent on the new design, site maintenance, environmental tests and other costs. Included is the $670,000 cost of demolishing the two buildings.

School board member David Tokofsky, who has long opposed the project, said liability issues linger and that the size of the project is disproportionate to the number of students to be served.

And Mullinax said questions remain on how remediation will be done under existing buildings - some half-million square feet that includes the parking garage.

``I don't know how effectively they can go under them and remediate those,'' Mullinax said. ``It's like building a house and then building a basement.''

He also said the district's decision to adhere to the letter of the law - which says school buildings can't be within 50 feet of an active earthquake fault line - by tearing down two buildings when it couldn't determine whether the fault was active wasn't sound.

``If there's an earthquake does it matter if it's 50 feet or 51 feet?''

And with three other new high schools now nearby - which parents might prefer over one with a legacy of environmental problems - he said the district could face the irony of having to bus kids into the school.

``He (Romer) better be careful about praising himself until he gets it built; it could still be his downfall.''

Romer, who's overseen the district's construction and renovation program that includes 160 built or planned new schools, said that despite the other schools in the area, Belmont still is needed because downtown is becoming more residential.

``We've taken it, we're correcting it in the way it ought to be corrected, and it's worth doing,'' he said.

But not everyone is convinced.

Board member Julie Korenstein, who has repeatedly voted against completing the school, said it remains `'the wrong decision.''

``Once it's completed, people will probably forget, but my hope is no ongoing environmental problems come back to haunt Belmont,'' she said. ``It may be OK in the end, but it was extremely costly.''

Beth Barrett, [phone]

beth.barrett(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo:

(color) After years of delays and problems, bids are expected to be opened this week on a new development plan at the site that would include renovations and construction of seven small learning communities, each with its own administration.

Box:

no caption (Belmont Learning Center site)

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