The old Sears building in Santa Monica is turning its eye as a temporary home at Palisade Charter High School, which was damaged by the Palisade fire in early January.
School administrators temporarily granted ongoing negotiations during school board meetings.
“We don’t say much about the temporary relocation because we need to talk more later,” said Pamela Maggie, the school’s executive director and principal. “But I want to assure everyone we’re working on it that we’ve been a little behind because, like so many things deal with contracts, things come out from time to time. Because. We work through it. I think we’ll solve it all quickly.”
Administrators and board members hope that students will be able to return to Pallisard High Property soon in the fall, using portable buildings and 70% of campuses that did not cause fires.
Authorities are also debating the possibility of holding this year’s graduation at this year’s standing soccer stadium.
The Sears building closed in 2017, with a $50 million office and retail makeover ready for 2020. The complex has ample space for a high school with 3,000 students registered, indicating the available space on the site.
The vacant Sears Store in Santa Monica, seen in 2020, has recently undergone a transformation to transform Art Deco-style buildings into offices, restaurants and retail complexes.
(Melmercon/Los Angeles Times)
Magee recently estimated its post-fire registrations at around 2,700. The location is far from the homes of people who lived in Pallisard, but many of those residents are scattered around the LA area after losing their homes in the fire. The school also has a majority of students who commute from outside the area they attended.
Pali High students began their spring semester online on January 23rd. These students had previously experienced difficult periods of remote learning during the pandemic.
Unlike a pandemic shutdown, students are still gathering for off-campus sports, social and other activities. On Tuesday, they celebrated the victory by the girls’ water polo team.
The fire left a complicated situation to sort out. As an example, teachers want to know that it is safe to return to an intact state, but that smoke and ashes will impact and regain their belongings into the main structure.
The campus buildings behind, destroyed by fire, have been cleaned up, leaving behind flat ground, which one manager said is described as safe for walking.
Pali High is an independent charter school run by its own board of directors. The school was always run from property owned by the Los Angeles Unified School District, and operated the school before it broke from the district.
As an independent charter, Parisian leaders have both the opportunity and responsibility to manage a challenging recovery without telling them what the district should do. Both Paris and the school system are working together to bring campuses back to good condition, officials from both sides said.
Details of negotiations with the owner of Sears Properties were the main topic of the closed door paris boarding session, which lasted about 90 minutes. Real estate negotiations can be legally discussed in closed sessions.
“We definitely plan to get more communication,” Maggie said. “I know what people feel at times, why didn’t we have more information? But again, we’re trying to make sure we have a dotted line.
She added that she will soon find information about new locations and how a return to in-person learning will unfold.
“We’re doing all of these things, but we’re working on it every day and trying to make this happen as quickly as possible,” Maggie said.
According to the Los Angeles Conservancy, the temporary location of hope is a notable renovated structure.
“When Sears, Lowbuck and Company built department stores in Santa Monica in 1947, they did so at an interesting time for commercial development,” the Conservancy article said. “The shopping area was beginning to move away from pedestrian-oriented storefronts with a walking-oriented design, and towards a car-oriented center with a large car park and facade to catch the eye of drivers. ”
Designed by renowned local architect Roland Crawford, the Sears building was able to capture the time of its transition [and] The optimism and sense of growth of the times has a massive, stylish architectural touch that touted Sears as a future-looking company. ”
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