City Council Approves Plan To Tear Down Former LAPD Headquarters
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – The Los Angeles City Council Tuesday unanimously approved additional funding towards the demolition of the Parker Center – the longtime former headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department – and a new municipal office building to replace it.
The city council voted Tuesday to move forward with demolition of the Parker Center, which would make way for an approximately 27-story office tower for municipal employees.
A report in May from the City Administrative Office found that this plan would cost about $708.9 million. Of that total, $32 million would go towards demolition, which will begin in the fall of 2018 and be complete by the end of 2019. It's part of a larger plan to revitalize the Civic Center area.
One of the goals of the project is to centralize more city employees in the Civic Center area by allowing the city to sell other buildings it owns or terminate leases in ones it rents.
"It will turn the Civic Center into a 24-hour destination by creating an open, pedestrian-focused design with a plaza, paseos and a campus full of residential and retail space," said Councilman Jose Huizar, who has championed the plan. "It will also ensure that the surrounding communities, most notably Little Tokyo, are not shut out in both form and practice, as they were decades ago when their property was taken."
The projected cost of replacing the Parker Center has continued to rise. In 2015, a report by the city Bureau of Engineering found that tearing it down and replacing it would run around $514 million.
Last month, in preparation for the demolition, the massive 36-foot long-by-6-foot tall "Theme Mural of Los Angeles" was transported out of the Parker Center lobby, where it has lived for more than six decades.
The mural was created the same year that the Parker Center was built, 1955. The Parker Center served as LAPD's headquarters until 2009, when the agency moved into its new headquarters about a block away.
In 2015, the L.A. Cultural Heritage Commission recommended that the Parker Center be given historic-cultural status in an effort to delay plans to demolish the building. However, the city council decided against the recommendation.
The building was originally known as the Police Facilities Building. In 1969, it was named after former Chief William H. Parker, who served in the LAPD from 1950 until his death in 1966. Allegations of racial discrimination by police are part of Parker's legacy, which included the 1965 Watts Riots when officers were accused of harassment and abuse against the black community.
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