Officials unveil health center plans

Thursday, November 19, 1998

Officials unveil health center plans

REGENTS: Board to vote on hospital that will combine research
with patient care

By Edina Lekovic

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

State of the art doesn’t begin to describe the plans for the
replacement Center for Health Sciences.

The new 529-bed facility will have all private rooms with
sliding glass doors, a couch in each room to accommodate family
members, elevators the size of an operating room and two helipads
on the roof.

UCLA officials pulled out all the stops with their hour-long
presentation and video detailing the necessity for their $1.2
billion hospital plan.

After a day spent touring the existing facilities and speaking
to hospital representatives, the regents clearly backed the
project.

Regent Meredith Khachigian commended the project as "inspiring
and impressive."

And while the UC Board of Regents will not vote on the overall
project until Thursday, they were so visibly impressed by the
display, that certification of the 1,500-page environmental impact
report and amendments to the capital budget passed unanimously with
little discussion.

Provost of medical sciences Gerald Levey orchestrated the
presentation on the repair of the seismically damaged Center for
Health Sciences (CHS).

"We are going to build something very different," Levey said of
the expansive plans. "This (project) is very special."

After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, a number of campus
buildings were left with serious structural damage. Since then, the
Center for Health Sciences, a main provider of health care in West
Los Angeles, has operated while rated seismically "very poor" and
below "life safety standards."

With this in mind, architect Didi Pei – associate and son of the
project’s renowned architect I.M. Pei – said they sought to "design
a building for the health care systems of the future."

But, officials have used the earthquake as an opportunity to
update the hospitals’ technology and services.

All in-patient care, research and educational activities of the
Medical Center, Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital and the
health sciences schools are currently located in the CHS
complex.

The new hospital, scheduled for completion in 2010, will stand
eight stories and consolidate the Neuropsychiatric and Children’s
Hospitals with the main Medical Center.

But the regents were most impressed with the committee’s
commitment to work within the budget – a goal they hoped would
spread to other UC projects.

"I will take personal responsibility of the on-schedule,
on-budget delivery of the Westwood Replacement Hospital," Levey
said. "The better we do (budget-wise), the better off we’ll be
(with equipment and technology)."

Designs for the new hospital, which include UCLA’s trademark
brick patterns on walkways and buff-colored stones, were unveiled
Wednesday.

"Pei has sculpted the classical hospital box to maximize the
natural light," said Sarah Jensen, assistant vice chancellor of
health sciences capital programs. "He’s broken down the scale so
that it is comparable to the buildings around it."

Concrete squares with brick banding similar to that of Janss
steps will be extended throughout the new complex.

With approval of the environmental impact report, the state will
review the report and issue construction permits, on the condition
the report is complete and UCLA has responded to all potential
impacts.

The project, however, has not proceeded without its share of
dissension. A few Westwood homeowners’ associations participated in
public hearings included in the environmental impact report.

"I feel like a voice crying out in the wilderness," said UCLA
Watch representative Alvin Milder, regarding what the group sees as
serious flaws in the project. "We’d like to do something to see the
university improve the environment."

Milder called on the regents to move the new hospital to Lot 32
rather than Lot 14, in order to minimize traffic on Gayley Ave.

He and his wife voiced their concerns to the board Wednesday,
saying it was just part of a larger trend.

"Since 1975, we have been fighting one project after another,"
said Sharon Milder. "I’d much rather be at home gardening."

However, Jensen responded to resident concerns over the site by
pointing to the problems caused by the even higher traffic spot of
Lot 32’s location near Wilshire Blvd.

"Wilshire and Veteran is the fourth-busiest intersection in the
U.S. – it’s the wrong location for a new hospital," Jensen said,
adding that its location overlooking the Veteran’s cemetery was not
conducive to a healing hospital environment.

"We looked at 11 sites campus-wide, including Lot 32," Jensen
said. "But we concluded that the relationships between research,
scientific study, teaching and medical care" should be preserved
geographically.

The second-largest public building in the nation after the
Pentagon, the Center for Health Sciences occupies 3.1 million
square feet and has over 28 miles of corridors.

"I am confident that will be the most beautiful and functional
hospital in the world," said Chancellor Albert Carnesale.

DERRICK KUDO/Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Chancellor Carnesale presents the UCLA Health Center Facilities
Reconstruction Plan to the Board of Regents.

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