Deal clears way for Cocoanut Grove's demolition
Conservancy group settles its lawsuit against L.A. Unified, allowing the district to raze the historic nightclub for a new school.
Ending perhaps its most contentious battle over a new campus, the Los Angeles Unified School District will pay $4 million to fund historic school conservation in exchange for the Los Angeles Conservancy dropping a lawsuit that sought to preserve the once-glitzy Cocoanut Grove nightclub at the former Ambassador Hotel.
"We still continue to believe that it was feasible to save the hotel," said Linda Dishman, the conservancy's executive director.
"At this point, we as an organization want to move on. What's left at the Ambassador site is not really historic preservation at this point, and there's a lot of other buildings we can focus on."
The settlement will allow the school system to demolish most of the Cocoanut Grove's structure and begin building a sprawling, 4,200-student K-12 campus on the site, which it had been eyeing for a school for decades.
"It is my greatest hope that this puts the whole saga finally to an end," said Kevin Reed, the district's general counsel. He said the district would have won the lawsuit, but decided to end the case so the $566-million project could continue on schedule.
The first of the schools, a K-3 building, is slated to open in 2009.
The conservancy dropped the case Jan. 2 after signing the settlement, but the district did not publicize it until Tuesday, in a joint statement initiated by the conservancy.
A district spokeswoman said in an e-mail that it was unclear "whether there needed to be a press announcement."
Officials said the Board of Education agreed to the settlement during a closed session Dec. 18, but its actions were not required to be reported until the court approved the dismissal of the case and then only in response to an inquiry.
The hotel, built in 1921, was a glamorous intersection of celebrity and politics in its heyday, the site of six Academy Awards presentations. Movie stars, royalty and every president from Herbert Hoover to Richard Nixon lodged there during visits to Los Angeles. It was also the scene of Robert Kennedy's assassination in 1968.
The hotel eventually fell into disrepair.
It was dilapidated when the district first set its sights on it in the 1980s. But before L.A. Unified could act, a group of investors including Donald Trump bought the hotel with plans to build the world's tallest skyscraper. The district initiated eminent domain proceedings, creating a legal tug of war.
- Closing the deal Sep 01, 2005
- L.A. Unified Seals Deal to Raze Ambassador Hotel Aug 31, 2005
- Schools Sued to Halt Destruction of Hotel Aug 19, 1989
