Fencing is up at Parker Center, where demolition is getting underway

An attempt to halt demolition of Parker Center has failed, and a plan to raze the former headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department is moving ahead.

Fencing and scaffolding are already in place, and Anna Bahr, a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Garcetti, tells Curbed that hazardous materials are scheduled to be removed from the building beginning next week.

The city will eventually demolish the building to put a 27-story office tower on the site, at a cost of more than $700 million.

Last month, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and the Coalition to Preserve LA teamed up to file a petition for a temporary restraining order against the city—a move that could have forced the city to halt demolition while the case was being decided.

The petition was denied last month.

AHF and the coalition also unsuccessfully campaigned to save the midcentury building and refurbish it for use as homeless housing.

A “significant postwar addition to the Los Angeles Civic Center,” Parker Center opened in 1955 and was designed by J. E. Stanton and Welton Becket and Associates. The latter firm was also responsible for the Capitol Records Building, Beverly Hilton, and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

But Garcetti has said the building is contaminated with asbestos and unsound seismically.

It is also tarnished by its association with dark LAPD history—including the Rodney King beating and Rampart Scandal—that many city officials and community members argue makes it unworthy of preservation. That legacy played a large part in the building being denied city landmark status last year.

The city has not said when the building itself will come down.

• AIDS Healthcare Foundation sues LA over Parker Center demolition [Curbed LA]
• Coalition to Preserve LA launches ballot initiative to preserve, rename Parker Center [Curbed LA]
• Parker Center’s ties with LA’s racial injustices may keep it from landmark status [Curbed LA]