Measure BC: Beach Cities Health District seeks $30 million for new era of campus

CORRECTION:

The original version of this story incorrectly stated that if the bond fails, BCHD would reduce the size of the planned assisted living facility, part of its proposed “Healthy Living Campus” project, from 217 units across six floors to 175 or 150 on four floors. This would be done if the bond PASSES, according to Tom Bakaly, Beach Cities Health District CEO.

by Garth Meyer

The Beach Cities Health District seeks voter approval of a $30 million bond Nov. 5 to tear down the old South Bay Hospital, complete the allcove youth health facility 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.

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 that the building could operate within “acceptable risk standards” until late 2026. 

The District has committed to the tear-down in the next two years, whether a bond funds it or not. 

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 on the bond.

If and when 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, would be expected to move to into its new building next year if the bond passes.

(The name “allcove” is not capitalized).

All told, the bond breaks down to: $9 million for allcove construction, $8 million for hospital demolition, $7 million for open space to be used for BCHD Center for Health & Fitness programming such as Zumba in the Park; and $6 million for parking, grading, planning, site work and contingencies. 

State Proposition 5, if it passes, would drop the required 2/3 majority votes for BCHD to pass the bond, down to the school board level of 55%.

The allcove money would be paired with existing grants.

“We have $7.3 million in state and federal funds for allcove,” said Tom Bakaly, CEO for Beach Cities Health District. “We are asking for an additional $9 million, which includes $5 million more for the base construction and $4 million for sustainability add-ons, larger rooms, and connection to the open space. The grant is not enough to build (the base building).”

Healthy Living Campus effect

If the bond passes, Bakaly said BCHD would reduce the size of a planned assisted living building, part of its proposed “Healthy Living Campus” project, from 217 units across six floors to 175 or 150, on four floors.

The private builder/operators were “on the hook” in an earlier deal to cover the cost to demolish the old hospital, as well as to create the open space.

If the bond fails, would BCHD then relocate the Center for Health & Fitness, and put allcove on pause?

“We don’t know. We would still have the state grant and federal grant for allcove. We would see if there is something we could do with that,” Bakaly said.

Without bond funds, he estimated $800,000 per year to finance the hospital tear-down, for which BCHD would make reductions to its services in that amount.

“The big word is tradeoffs,” he said. “How to make this (campus) completely safe and a place for people to come to be well.”

He said that BCHD has done “priority-based budgeting” the past few years.

Bakaly added up the three bonds in play in Redondo Beach Nov. 5, saying that for a voter, if all are approved, it would mean $50 total per $100,000 in assessed value, or $400 per year for a homeowner with a dwelling of $800,000 of assessed value.

The three bonds are Measure FP – to build a new police station and two fire stations in Redondo Beach, Measure S – to fund Redondo school facilities, and Measure BC, the BCHD bond.

Escalation

Martha Koo, BCHD board president, said before its decision in July to put the bond on the ballot, “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.”

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.”

The original idea was that allcove would be part of the planned six-story building. Then BCHD received the grants in order to build the first allcove stand-alone facility, for a program begun by Stanford University in Palo Alto.

“We were hoping the $7 million (in grants) was going to cover the base facility,” Bakaly said. 

After the initial estimate fell under this threshold, early last year, in later estimates the base cost went up by $5 million.

Bakaly cited the reason being increased cost of modular structure architecture, site work, a retaining wall for the adjacent hill and labor costs. Modular construction means components built off-site. 

The allcove building would be 9,500 square feet. 

“We would not have the funds to complete it as designed by the youth right now (without the bond),” Bakaly said. 

If the bond passes, allcove construction would begin in early 2025. 

The last time BCHD ran a general obligation bond was in 1956 to build the hospital. It was then known as the South Bay Hospital District. ER