On Monday morning this week, the 200 South block of Arden Blvd looked much the same as it has for the past 90 years. By Wednesday mid-morning it was a whole new landscape as five homes were demolished to make way for the Marlborough School expansion planned since 1999.
Marlborough will be expanding their campus by almost 25%, adding almost an acre with a full-size athletic field, new swimming facility and additional parking. It received a conditional use permit for the expansion in 1999, prior to the establishment of a Historic Preservation Overlay Zone (HPOZ) put in place for the area in 2005. The $24 million Marlborough project is expected to be completed for the 2016-17 academic year. Renderings of the Marlborough expansion are available here.
Larchmont Buzz: Marlborough School Updates Community on Arden Project
And unfortunate situations like THIS are why it’s vital to establish and rigoriously enforce HPOZs.
It was grandfathered in from the early decision, so the local HPOZ board went along with the plan and didn’t try to stop demo.
That’s why I said ESTABLISH. If neighborhoods want to prevent demos then they have to establish HPOZs early.
i was sorry to see the houses go away and wondered what the back story was.
Julie Grist: “It was grandfathered in from the early decision, so the local HPOZ board went along with the plan and didn’t try to stop demo.”
It wasn’t that the HPOZ board didn’t try….they couldn’t top this demolition if they wanted to. The demolition was agreed to by the community, the city, and the school after years of “process” 16 years ago. There was no going back…..nor should there have been.
It would have been lovely to still have those houses….but it is wonderful to have a world class school in the neighborhood. A real attraction for the community. It is why we moved into the neighborhood 25 years ago with an infant girl.
So sad to see these lovely old homes demolished. It’s like mansionization, with an excuse.
I have long admired the quality of Marlborough even though I did not go there. I can understand why they want to increase their foot print but a part of me has a very hard time in seeing these historic homes demolished. I wish there had been a way to move them or to possibly work to repurpose them, within the plans for the school. I have been away from Los Angeles for 21 years now and I am afraid that very little is left of the wonderful town I spent my first 26 years. Once structures like this are gone, they are gone forever. I would hope that the school might have had some of their students go into these homes to document the architecture and to have a record of what was there. History is important. We need to at least document it someway if we do not intend to keep it for future generations.