CITY OKS 2 SITES.

Byline: Alexa Haussler Staff Writer

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved building two new Children's Museum campuses, including one at the San Fernando Valley's Hansen Dam.

The council unanimously agreed to the Hansen Dam location - and one in the downtown Art Park area near Little Tokyo - after a lengthy debate whether to make the construction of the downtown museum contingent upon the ability for the museum to raise $7.5 million still needed to construct the Valley location.

City Councilman Alex Padilla called linking the two projects a built-in safeguard to ensure the downtown museum isn't built and then the Valley project abandoned.

``Two campuses are better than one because the Children's Museum will be able to serve more children,'' Padilla said.

Mayor Richard Riordan is scheduled to sign the ordinance today at a ceremony at the current location of the Children's Museum, 310 N. Main St.

The decision follows years of wrangling over locations for the new museum, with several council members clamoring to land the museum in their districts. Ultimately, the two sites under consideration were selected from six proposed locations, including next to the soon-to-be-opened North Hollywood station of the Metro Red Line subway.

Councilman Joel Wachs, who wanted to see it at the subway station, which is located in his district, said building two campuses could simply be the start.

``I look at this like a beginning of a concept of a children's museum with many campuses,'' he said. ``I like to look at this as a start to something really exciting in the city.''

The new campuses each are planned to cover 80,000 square feet, and will accommodate a total of 7 million children a year.

Padilla said the Hansen Dam campus will emphasize the outdoors and would include an environmental awareness center and park rangers to lead interpretive discussions. The Little Tokyo facility likely will be more indoors and urban-oriented.

The museums, which will cost roughly $32 million to build, will be funded with $11.7 million from a bond issue passed by city voters, state and federal grants and private donations.

Doug Ring, president of the museum's Board of Trustees, said he is delighted that the council approved the two new sites for the now-overcrowded museum.

``It has been a 6 1/2- to seven-year quest for a place for the Children's Museum to create a new home,'' he said. ``To be able to come out of this not with one, but with two campuses, is a cornucopia of opportunities.''

Cile Borman, a member of the Lake View Terrace Improvement Association, said she was surprised at how quickly the council approved the museum site, although she is not opposed to the plan.

``Our community needs as much culture as we can get,'' she said. ``I just hope that they've done all the research so that it doesn't prove to be not well designed or not well thought out.''

Borman added that she hopes residents will be consulted on the appearance of the building, and that it will blend with the open, equestrian flavor of the area.

``You want it to be designed so that you can bring all of these different activities together in a harmonious way,'' she said.