The Region : Rescue Center May Move

The Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency’s board of directors and the Union Rescue Mission have agreed to begin negotiating a plan to develop a larger building for the mission at a new downtown site. The CRA board said it will try to purchase parking lot property at 6th Street and Maple Avenue from three owners and then sell the property to the mission, which would build a 100,000-square-foot facility for an estimated $10 million. The CRA has promised to help the mission finance the new building. The 95-year-old mission, which serves the poor and homeless in a building at 226 S. Main St., is in an area that the CRA has earmarked for a Civic Center redevelopment plan. An association of industrial businesses in the area chosen for the new mission site has protested the CRA plan, complaining that Skid Row residents would be drawn to their area.