BILLIONAIRE'S CLOUT SWAYING LAUSD HIGH SCHOOL PLAN RADICALLY ALTERED.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

Billionaire Eli Broad has used his extraordinary financial and political clout within the Los Angeles Unified School District to commandeer a planned downtown high school to suit his educational and architectural vision, the Daily News has learned.

At a time when LAUSD has launched a crash school-building program to relieve overcrowding and end year-round schedules, Broad has used his influence with school board members he helped elect and with Superintendent Roy Romer, who he hand-picked, to radically alter plans for a high school on the site of the district's old headquarters, according to numerous interviews.

Plans for a traditional school intended to ease overcrowding in the district's most impacted area has been transformed into a FAME-like performing arts academy. The prominent local architect hired to design the school has been replaced by an international architect to create landmark buildings, consistent with Broad's goal of creating distinctive cultural structures downtown.

While some actions have been taken in public, others have been made behind the scenes without board members even knowing.

Last month, for instance, after a quiet selection process conducted at The Broad Foundation in West Los Angeles by a panel partly put together and paid for by the foundation, the district hired Vienna architect Wolf Prix with Coop Himmelblau for $800,000.

In his defense

Romer defended Broad's role, saying the billionaire offered to loan LAUSD $600,000 in August to pay for the kind of redesign the district couldn't afford. With passage of the $3.35 billion Measure K in November, the district doesn't need the loan.

``That was a very generous act,'' Romer said. ``I'm proud he stepped forward to help get something done. He didn't barge in. I invited him. He put money on the table to get a design we couldn't afford without his assistance.''

Romer said the district played by the rules and that the selection panel was made up mostly of district officials. He also said the district contracted with an approved local architect, HMC Group of Ontario, and that Prix is under that contract.

``We are absolutely in charge of this project; that's the only way to do business,'' Romer said. ``Eli has an appropriate input into this thing by advice and comments, or having his staff observe because he put money on the table.''

Several board members defend Broad's role, but David Tokofsky said the goal has become to build a ``monument to humankind,'' when the district's stated mission is to provide neighborhood schools.

``I don't mind at all that we pursue the most outstanding, elite arts location in LAUSD that makes New York FAME look like a garage sale ... but, stop doing this stuff in a private way,'' Tokofsky said.

Broad did not return calls for comment Friday.

Building a high school at 450 North Grand Ave., the district's former headquarters, has taken on added importance because the Belmont Learning Center project nearby has remained in limbo despite Broad's efforts to resurrect the project as a charter school run by a nonprofit he backed.

Six-month campaign

According to more than a dozen interviews with those close to the process, Broad has pressed for his vision of the North Grand high school for at least six months. He impressed several board members with his academy vision at an elite California Club dinner and then at a follow-up lunch at the club, both featuring New York FAME officials, those who attended said.

Five board members showed up at the dinner, but two left to avoid violating the state's open meetings act, according to board president Caprice Young.

On Aug. 14, the board voted to abandon the traditional high school and spend about $18 million extra to build the academy.

Tokofsky, who attended the California Club dinner, said the hiring of Prix was not announced when the district signed an architectural contract with HMC Group on Dec. 12.

Young also said she was unaware Prix had been hired.

``I'm really appreciative of (Broad) having the whole vision; I think it's really cool,'' Young said. ``I think the fact it's going to be a world class performing arts school for those kids around that area specifically is really outstanding.''

Young said local architects shouldn't feel shunned.

``There's still plenty for everyone,'' she said.

Jose Huizar, who represents the area, said kids from low-income neighborhoods will be the ones who benefit from a world-class performing arts school.

``I welcome his involvement.''

Broad's board

Broad has contributed at least $250,000 to help elect a majority of the board since 1999 and is helping fund efforts to oust Tokofsky, who is up for re-election.

Local architects spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they feared losing local work if they publicly criticized Broad, the force behind the Museum of Contemporary Art and other major architectural landmarks in the city.

``Where does Eli get the power to reach in and stir this thing up?'' one local architect said. ``It's his design genre, and if it's not of that vogue, he'll get you out of the way. You are screwed.''

Martha Welborne, managing director of the Grand Avenue Committee, a nonprofit that Broad is co-chairman of, said that to the extent The Broad Foundation is giving money, he should have some say in the design.

Welborne, who was on a panel that picked the executive architect HMC Group to work with Prix, said the high school's location on Grand Avenue was significant.

``Somewhere along the way it was decided that since it was Grand Avenue where there are all these wonderful architectural icons, this should be a real statement,'' Welborne said.

The board decision in August was shortly followed by an abrupt end of work by architects AC Martin Partners, whose design for the traditional high school had won praise and support from the district's design advisory council, chaired by Robert Timme, dean of University of Southern California's School of Architecture.

``I think we were all quite surprised,'' Timme said.

Timme called AC Martin's work an ``excellent design,'' adding the firm subsequently did a study on how the plans could be modified for a performing arts academy.

``It's designed, and then to bring in someone else ... I don't understand the logic behind it,'' Timme said.

He added: ``The people who have the money call the shots. When they have so much money that making it doesn't mean anything, then they worry about posterity, about what things are really lasting in a society and culture, and they want to tie their name to it.

``Be it Eli Broad or Donald Trump - and it's not all bad incidentally, and certainly not bad if they are willing to expend their own funds to see it happen - they're looking for higher quality.''

He noted that Broad has been able to influence the project without actually investing his money in it.

``I'd have no problem if (they) called it the Eli Broad Performing Arts High School and he put up $50 million. ... What's so strange here, it's a loan.''

School on schedule

LAUSD officials said the 1,584-seat high school remains on schedule for completion by the end of 2005, and can be built for the $72.3 million the board agreed upon in August.

Bob Moeller, LAUSD's director of construction, said the conversion to a performing arts center was the board's idea.

``Eli Broad's involvement was none,'' Moeller said, adding The Broad Foundation staff only acted as an ``observer'' to the panel, and the foundation office was ``just a place to meet.''

Chris Martin, CEO of AC Martin Partners, said his firm had done its own performing arts study during the summer in cooperation with The Broad Foundation officials after getting $60,000 from the district. He described the foundation's Veronica Davey as ``sort of like a project manager.''

Davey could not be reached Friday for comment.

Martin said there were disagreements over cost and time schedules, as the work progressed. Specifically, he said the firm estimated the cost at $300 per square foot, and said a redesign would take 10 to 12 months; the district insisted on a price of $200 per square foot and drawings in about five months.

On Aug. 30 - two weeks after the board vote - Martin said he unexpectedly was told by LAUSD officials a new design architect would be assigned to handle two buildings, and a portion of a third.

``We said, 'Gee, we're surprised,'' he said.

The firm declined to work on the redesign under those conditions, but will continue to work on the portion of the high school unaffected by the new concept.

Sylvia Lavin, chairwoman of UCLA's Department of Architecture, said Davey, of the Broad foundation, contacted her to be on the panel and she was paid a standard fee, or honorarium, for the work.

Stephen Rountree, president of the Music Center/Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County, also was on the panel, along with three LAUSD officials.

Lavin said the panel was interested in getting ``the best person.'' Two local firms were interviewed, but not AC Martin, whose architects ``don't make cultural statements,'' she said.

Lavin said she didn't think the panel selected the architect, but that district officials - who had sole access to the financial information - made the final pick.

``We tried to facilitate a conversation,'' Lavin said. ``It's clear the panel didn't select them.''

LAUSD'S Moeller said the district followed the panel's recommendation.

``They ranked all the firms,'' Moeller said. ``They conducted interviews and debated the merits of the teams.''

New York architect Bernard Tschumi, one of the finalists, said he was intrigued by the project, but that the district found his fee about $200,000 higher than the others.

``The site is absolutely wonderful. I'd love to do something there,'' Tschumi said. ``They had a very fast schedule, a few months.''

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Billionaire Eli Broad has used his influence to change plans for a traditional high school into a performing arts academy that will be housed in complex being designed by an international architect.