College district abandons plans for campus at bakery site

Los Angeles City College has abandoned plans to open a satellite campus at the renovated Van de Kamp’s bakery site in Glassell Park, the site of a ferocious preservationist fight almost a decade ago.

The Los Angeles Community College District adapted the building and its 16th century Dutch townhouse facade for the college’s use. Because of budget problems, however, the district will now turn the property over, most likely, to the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools for a charter high school, said Larry Eisenberg, the district’s executive director for facilities planning and development.

"We would have loved to offer a satellite campus, but the budget constraints -- nobody could have anticipated that," Eisenberg said Wednesday.

The property will have a workforce development center and a community gym, Eisenberg said. The district will review the arrangement in five years, at which point the idea for a satellite campus could be revived, he added.

To honor the bakery heritage, Eisenberg said he had investigated festooning a security fence with decorative cupcakes, rolls and other goodies, but it turned out to be expensive. Eisenberg said he hopes to come up with a reasonably priced alternative.

The high school is expected to open in September.

-- Gale Holland

Comments

[Lornaj]

LACCD continunes to waste the Tax PayersMoney,and the Tax Payers continunes to give them money to waste. Before you know it, they will put up another Bond messure. When you change in the middle of your Master Plan you run out of the Tax Payers Money. There thought is it is the Tax Payers Money, so we can waste.