LAUSD TO DEMOLISH AMBASSADOR HOTEL.

Byline: Jennifer Radcliffe Staff Writer

After more than a decade of heated debate, Los Angeles Unified School District leaders on Tuesday approved the plan to raze the historic Ambassador Hotel and build a campus for 4,240 students on the site.

While the action angered conservationists who fought to save the structure where Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, friends and family members of the slain senator urged the district to build schools on the Wilshire Boulevard site.

``I understand that there's lots of people who want that hotel preserved, but those men and women have not raised a single dollar in 12 years,'' Maxwell Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy's son, told the board. ``They should not use you to force the poorest members of this community to pay for their hotel.''

The board voted 4-3 after a four-hour, heated debate to tear down the hotel. Board members Mike Lansing, Jon Lauritzen and David Tokofsky voted to save the hotel.

Destroying the Ambassador is an irretrievable decision, Lauritzen said.

``I cannot be a part of it,'' Lauritzen said.

A representative of the Los Angeles Conservancy, a nonprofit group that led efforts to save the hotel, said he hopes elected officials will pay the price for tearing down the historical structure.

``We would never forget the elected officials who chose to send in the wrecking ball,'' said Ken Bernstein, director of preservation issues for the Los Angeles Conservancy.

The LAUSD's $318 million plan, called the Heritage K-12 plan, is being billed as a compromise between conserving history and relieving overcrowded schools. Most of the hotel will be destroyed, but a few historic elements will be preserved.

``I have unfettered support for this plan,'' board President Jose Huizar said. ``There's a lot of heat on this board, but we have been circling and circling around for years. It's time to make a decision and move on.''

Some board members have said that they expected to be sued no matter what the decision.

Lansing said he will lead a lawsuit if the district spends more than $15 million on preservation - money he says is being added to try to stave off a lawsuit from conservationists.

``We will not spend a penny over $15 million or I will bring a lawsuit, I'm not kidding,'' he said.

Prior to voting Tuesday, the board agreed to add stricter regulations to the project that would cap the total cost at $318 million, including up to $15 million to preserve some elements of the hotel. Board members also agreed to seek private funding for preservation and to pay for a park honoring Robert F. Kennedy.

``In a perfect world, we would build schools and we would preserve buildings,'' board member Marlene Canter said. ``For me, the kids have to come first.''

The LAUSD will build an elementary school, a middle school and a high school on the Wilshire Boulevard site by 2008 or 2009. The campus would feature 17 acres of open space, a state-of-the-art gymnasium and an Olympic-size swimming pool.

It will relieve overcrowding at Belmont and Los Angeles high schools, Berendo Middle School, and Hoover and Cahuenga elementary schools - campuses that average 1,185 students more than their designed capacities.

More than 3,800 students are involuntarily bused out of the area to attend school daily, officials said.

``Education is the most important thing,'' parent Susana Arreguin, a representative of the Pico Union Neighborhood Council, said through a translator. ``I think if Mr. Kennedy was alive here today, he would chose to have another school and other children educated.''

The LAUSD bought the property in 2001 for $76.5 million, ending a 12-year battle with developers who included Magic Johnson and Donald Trump.

Now, the six-story main hotel building will be demolished. The facade of the north side of the new schools will be built to resemble the hotel's Wilshire Boulevard profile. The hotel's Paul Williams-designed coffee shop will become the teachers' lounge, and the Embassy Ballroom will be rebuilt as a library with its original ceiling preserved.

The famous Cocoanut Grove nightclub, where Hollywood stars once mingled with politicians and mobsters, will be converted into the school auditorium.

``We feel this option gives us the best design, the best use for children,'' Superintendent Roy Romer said.

A panel of experts is expected to be appointed to consider ways to preserve the pantry area where Sirhan Sirhan fatally shot Kennedy in 1968, and an outdoor memorial park would be created to honor the senator.

Natasha Valiente, an LAUSD high school student studying architecture, said a plaque memorializing RFK is not enough. Students would benefit more from attending school in a historical site.

``We're on the brink of bulldozing over eight decades of dreams,'' she said.

LAUSD officials said fully restoring the structure could add a year of construction time and at least $50 million to the price tag. Most of the buildings are poorly constructed or damaged beyond repair. The ceilings are too low, the windows are too small, the paint is lead-based, and the walls are filled with asbestos, district officials said.

Even reconsidering a new plan could add $8 million to $20 million to the project's cost, officials said.

In addition to being a playground for Charlie Chaplin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, the Ambassador hosted thousands of Angelenos attending proms, birthday parties and concerts at the hotel before it closed in the 1980s.

Opting to tear down the hotel was tough, officials said.

``My decision tonight is not an easy decision,'' said board member Julie Korenstein, who remembers attending events at the hotel. ``It will take me a long, long time to readjust a lot of my emotions and feelings.''

Jennifer Radcliffe, [phone]

jennifer.radcliffe(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Maxwell Kennedy, son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, speaks to LAUSD board members Tuesday regarding his opposition to the use of school funds to preserve the Ambassador Hotel.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer