The Purple Line Extension project’s planned route under Beverly Hills High School has driven up the cost of additional parking that the school board had originally planned, according to a presentation at last week’s school board meeting.

Horace Mann, pictured when it was undergoing construction, was one of the main beneficiaries of Measure E funding, and Measure BH, if passed, will continue the districtwide construction program. (photo courtesy of the Beverly Hills Unified School District)

Approximately one-fifth of Measure BH, a $385 construction bond that will be on the June 5 ballot for Beverly Hills voters, has been budgeted for parking at the high school. The bond is primarily for facilities upgrades throughout the district, but the largest budgeted item in the project list is $85 million for the parking.

The district had to change course after it was determined that the proximity between its originally planned parking project and Metro’s Purple Line Extension tunnel alignment would have been too close for the district to secure the approvals it needed.

Terry Tao, a district attorney, presented one of the alternative options under consideration, which would place parking under the high school’s football field and raise the field onto a platform.

“The reality is it’s really not parking, it’s parking plus a football field,” Tao said of the added costs. “All the items associated with a football stadium including bleachers and the like would go above.”

He called the $85 million price “significantly more than what the cost was anticipated” for parking at the high school before the district had to accommodate the Purple Line tunnel alignment.

Metro’s plan to tunnel underneath Beverly Hills High School to bring the rail through Beverly Hills has been the subject of an ongoing legal battle between the two sides. The school district filed the latest in a series of lawsuits over the last several years on Jan. 26.

Section 2 of the Purple Line project is scheduled to begin construction this year to extend the rail into Beverly Hills and Century City, with new Wilshire/Rodeo and Century City/Constellation stations. The $6.3 billion project will ultimately extend the subway to Westwood.

Metro and the Federal Transit Administration are named as co-defendants in the school district’s lawsuit.

The district’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division, arguing that Metro has not adequately accounted for the potential health and safety concerns for students. The legal battle has also played out in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and Los Angeles County Superior Court. In a 2016 decision, Metro had to submit additional environmental reports, but the planned route remained intact.

School board member Mel Spitz said there are other options that could be considered in the coming years to add parking at the high school, before the board has to make a decision.

“No decision has been reached with regard to how we’re going to find and provide additional parking at the high school,” he said.

School board member Howard Goldstein asked for the city’s help as Metro’s construction approaches the school site.

“We can only control our property, the city has everything else,” Goldstein said. “I’m calling on them, I’m imploring them to help us with this. It’s that important.”

The city of Beverly Hills filed another lawsuit against Metro, the Federal Transit Administration and the U.S. Department of Transportation last week alleging that an environmental impact statement submitted by the agencies last November “fails to fairly, objectively, and adequately evaluate the harm to the City and its residents, the High School and High School students’ health, and the High School’s historical buildings.”

School board President Lisa Korbatov urged Beverly Hills residents to contact their elected officials, up to and including President Donald J. Trump, to oppose the current tunnel alignment. “This is no joke,” she said. “This is an existential threat to this campus, and to this city, and I don’t know where the school district will be if this high school is rendered really very compromised for many years and maybe for the foreseeable future.”

Metro has previously said it can safely build the portion of the tunnel under Beverly Hills High School.

“The Beverly Hills School District’s proposed underground parking structure and Metro’s tunnels are compatible,” according to a statement by Metro from spokesman Dave Sotero. “Metro remains committed to working cooperatively with the school district to coordinate our respective projects.”