PROJECTS: Commission approves $7.5 million in work on south side of LAX and a home-removal contract.
By Art Marroquin
STAFF WRITER
Greenery, a soundproof wall and wider roads leading to the Century (105) Freeway will soon be built on the south side of Los Angeles International Airport as part of a $7.5 million landscaping enhancement project approved Monday by the airport commission.
It will take about 10 months to complete the landscaping improvement project under a contract with Environmental Construction Inc., according to a report submitted by Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that operates LAX.
The improvements, funded by the airport's budget, will be made to a stretch of Sepulveda Boulevard bounded by Century Boulevard and Imperial Highway.
New landscaping will also be planted along the north side of Imperial Highway, just east of Sepulveda, according to LAWA.
In other action Monday, the Board of Airport Commissioners signed off on a pair on contracts allowing developers to demolish houses and apartments belonging to people who no longer wanted to live near LAX.
The panel approved a $3 million contract with Tujunga-based Interior Demolition Inc. to tear down 50 homes and a $3.1 million contract with New York-based LVI Environmental Services to remove another 50 homes located east and northeast of LAX.
The houses are being demolished as part of the airport's acquisition and relocation program, which allows homeowners to sell their property to LAWA.
In turn, LAWA provides relocation services to more than 2,500 affected homeowners and tenants who want to move rather than have LAX soundproof their homes.
So far, 449 homes have been acquired in Manchester Square and in neighborhoods between Airport Boulevard and Bedford Avenue since the relocation program began in 2000, according to LAWA.
About 110 more homes are scheduled to be acquired by the airport agency.
