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Local News in Brief : Plant to Be Film Archive

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The Beverly Hills City Council on Tuesday approved a 55-year lease that will allow the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to take over the former La Cienega Water Treatment Plant and convert the historic building into a film library and archive.

Bruce Davis, executive administrator of the academy, said the academy will spend more than $4 million to renovate the 60-year-old, 28,000-square-foot reinforced concrete, Spanish Colonial Revival-style building at La Cienega and Olympic boulevards. The academy also plans to build a 10,000-square-foot addition where filtration tanks currently are located.

The academy will move its Margaret Herrick Library from its Beverly Hills headquarters at 8949 Wilshire Blvd.

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The historic waterworks was slated for demolition by the City Council last spring after a city staff report said years of corrosion had weakened the building, but a suit by a citizens’ group led to the building being spared.

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