by Garth Meyer
The Beach Cities Health District board will vote July 24 on whether to seek voter approval for a $30 million bond to tear down the old South Bay Hospital, and fund other items on the District’s Redondo Beach campus.
The “BCHD Community Health & Wellness Measure” would pay for destruction and removal of the 1960 hospital building, replace it with two acres of grassy open space and 100 parking spots, and complete the coming alcove Beach Cities building with certain environmental and sustainability “best practices.”
BCHD states the reason to tear down the old hospital – which closed in 1998 – is seismic, pointing to a structural engineering analysis/risk assessment, which concluded the building could operate within “acceptable risk standards” until late 2026.
The District has committed to the tear-down in two years whether a bond funds it or not.
“We haven’t made a decision yet on a bond,” said Martha Koo, BCHD board president. “Beach Cities Health District has looked at a lot of different ways to support a loss of revenue, since 2017. I think a bond measure is really worth considering.”
The planned open space would be used for the health district’s outdoor health and wellness programs.
Most of the allcove Beach Cities (“allcove” is not capitalized) building for youth physical and mental health is funded by $7 million in state and federal grants.
Dan Smith, BCHD communications director, said discussion at the June 26 board meeting indicated the group leans toward putting a bond on the November ballot.
Koo served on the BCHD board’s property committee in 2021-22 and was in on various seismic meetings.
She named two issues with the hospital building, one being safety.
“Also, the ongoing cost of maintenance. This ever-increasing cost to maintain the building, plus lack of interest in having office space that is really old and outdated,” Koo said. “The maintenance costs more than any revenue stream we can get in for it.”
Terms of a proposed bond would be $3 per $100,000 in assessed property value – not market value. For a $1 million house in assessed value, the bond would add $30 per year to its owners’ property tax for 30 years.
The Beach Cities Health District serves Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach. Residents of each city are eligible to vote.
If the old hospital is torn down, current tenants Silverado Memory Care, UCLA Health and the BCHD Center for Health and Fitness would need to relocate. allcove, which operates today in the old hospital’s former cancer care space, will move to its new building next year, slated to start pre-construction in October.
The proposed bond’s $30 million total would break down to $8 million for the old hospital teardown, $7 million to develop the green space, $3 million for allcove building expansion, solar panels and other environmentally-friendly features, $7 million for the parking lot and allcove site link walkway, and $5 million for planning, architecture and engineering. ER