After more than a decade of planning and community outreach, LA County is moving closer to finalizing its vision for redeveloping the historic General Hospital site into a mix of housing, commercial hubs and community spaces.
Centennial Partners, the group leading the work, alongside developers Primestor and Bayspring, recently unveiled the project’s draft Master Plan at Alma Family Services in East LA, offering residents a closer look at the billion-dollar redevelopment expected to unfold in the next 15 years.
The plan outlines a phased transformation of the shuttered hospital and surrounding property into a mixed-use campus with housing, retail, green space and community hubs. The Master Plan is intended to serve as a flexible roadmap as different portions of the project move forward over the next decade. Developers estimate the full redevelopment will cost between $700 million and $1 billion over the next 10 years.
“This is such a special milestone. There’s more work ahead of us but we’re now advancing into a phase of the work to turn a vision into a reality,” Giovanna Araujo, the project’s director, said.
How community input shaped the plan
Developers said years of community engagement and meetings with residents and groups such as Eastside LEADS, InnerCity Struggle, and The Wellness Center helped shape the proposal. The goal is to integrate community feedback to repurpose the old hospital and West Campus into a “vibrant health and community-centered district.”
According to outreach findings shared during the presentation, most residents requested affordable housing, community safety, accessibility and cleanliness.
The draft Master Plan includes:
- Between 600 and 800 housing units inside the historic General Hospital building
- At least 25% of those units designated as affordable housing
- Housing priorities for veterans, seniors and youth transitioning out of foster care
- Community hubs
- Interconnected walkways
- Mass transit options
- Gardens to support native plants and animals
As more buildings are developed around the campus, the number of housing units is expected to grow to more than 1,000, organizers said.
Centennial Partners representatives also said that local jobs would be created in each construction phase but did not specify projected totals.
A “generational investment” for the Eastside
President and CEO of Alma Family Services Lourdes Caracoza suggested that housing and increased public safety may be the most crucial parts of the redevelopment plan. She also emphasized the historical role the General Hospital has played in her life and the lives of countless other Eastsiders.
“Historically, this is where you went to be healed or where you died,” Caracoza said. “Now, how do we make it a space where it’s focused on wellness? A lot of the families that come and speak, they know it’s not for them. They know it’s gonna be for their children. They know it’s gonna be for their grandchildren. It’s a generational investment.”
Boyle Heights resident Gabriela Garcia said she worries the needs of her special needs children and her neighbors could be overlooked as the development moves forward.
“Psychiatric care, rest beds and those kinds of things are necessary for a child with special needs,” Garcia said. “Are they going to take Centro Estrella and the programs they’re inviting into account, or are they going to prioritize what they think we need?”
Centennial Partners representatives said that services currently offered by East LA’s Centro Estrella and other groups like the Wellness Center and InnerCity Struggle would be incorporated into the long-term vision for the campus.
What’s next?
In the coming months, developers plan to present final building designs, a development plan and construction documents to the public. The project must also complete and approval for an Environmental Impact Review (EIR), which evaluates potential impacts a project would generate, such as, noise, water quality or greenhouse gas emissions.
If construction moves forward without setbacks, developers said the redevelopment should be completed within 15 years.
Groundbreaking for the seismic retrofitting of the old General Hospital building is expected to begin this summer.
