LA County seeks developer to turn hospital into housing

Los Angeles County has amassed $120 million to upgrade infrastructure beneath its long-closed General Hospital in Boyle Heights.

But it’s not clear if the honeypot will be enough to lure developers into redeveloping the 1.2-million-square-foot Art Deco landmark for affordable housing and community services at 1200 State Street, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.

Dozens of developers and private investors from across the nation met with county officials to hear the pitch on reimagining the historic hospital building.

The 1,200-bed General Hospital, which opened in 1933, closed because of damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The 600-bed LAC+USC Medical Center opened in 2008 next door.

Last summer, the county released a four-year feasibility study on how to repurpose the landmark into affordable housing, community services and retail space. The 12-acre West Campus is also open to development.

The study conducted for the 19-story hospital and its surrounding land in the middle of Boyle Heights offers an outline of potential uses, including up to 600 permanent housing units for homeless residents and working families.

It also includes office space, research labs, retail such as a grocery store and a transit hub with a new Metrolink train station.

The adaptive reuse of the abandoned hospital – which appeared in TV shows and movies such as General Hospital, The Interns, City of Angels and Dr. Kildare – would also involve upgrades to building systems, lead abatement and a seismic retrofit.

Its size doesn’t lend itself to existing streams of affordable housing funding, which is typically doled out in small portions. Likewise, a desire for larger three-bedroom units may prove less attractive from a cost perspective compared to one- and two-bedroom apartments.

The housing comes with a difficult and expensive restoration. In addition to a seismic retrofit, L.A.’s Depression-era hilltop monument would need new windows, heating and air conditioning and major interior work.

Although not registered as a national historic landmark, design plans would most likely require its face be kept intact.

The hospital was designed by the Allied Architects’ Association of Los Angeles, with input from County Architect Karl Muck, according to the L.A. Conservancy. A mural inside the foyer of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, was done by artist Hugo Ballin, who also painted the interior of Griffith Observatory.

The county is seeking developers and investors up to the job.

“We have a lot of dreaming, but hopefully these dreams will come to realization,” said Supervisor Hilda Solis, in her address to the developers. She said the project would take at least four years to complete.

A request for proposal is expected to be issued by the end of January, said Hilda Delgado, vice president of Actum, a marketing firm hired by the county.

“If you touch the facade, it is a deal breaker,” Delgado said. “They need a developer that will keep the historic aspect of the hospital building.”
As many as 55 developers and private investors and developers met with officials to tour the historic building and consider their options.

They included Dallas-based Trammell Crow; Maryland-based Edgemoor Infrastructure and Real Estate, which built the new Long Beach City Hall; and Westbrook Investments, owned by NBA star Russell Westbrook.

Steve Soboroff, a commercial and residential developer who built Playa Vista, a planned community between Westchester and Marina del Rey, is now a consultant for Lincoln Property, based in Dallas. He said the project must include a mixture of market-rate and affordable units, and not 100-percent low-income or only housing for the homeless.

“This is a public policy project,” he told the Daily News after listening to the county presentations. “This has to reflect Los Angeles and the surrounding areas.”

— Dana Bartholomew

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