The long dormant yet iconic General Hospital in Los Angeles is slated to become part of a mixed-use complex that speaks to the city’s more modern needs: housing, open space and healthcare uses to serve the region’s Eastside neighborhoods.
The LA County Board of Supervisors has approved another $3.3 million to support ongoing plans to turn the site in the Boyle Heights neighborhood into a mixed-use community with a healthcare focus, the latest such project across the United States. Dubbed Healthy Village, the development near downtown Los Angeles is slated to include as many as 885 new residential units, medical services, green space and retail, said Board Chair Pro Tem Hilda Solis, who is leading county efforts to redevelop the site in her district.
“This historic project is about preserving our past while investing in our future,” Solis said in a statement. “We are creating a community space that prioritizes housing, health care, sustainability and dignity for our most vulnerable.”
Built in 1934 and damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the Art Deco hospital has been vacant for decades but remains a cultural and architectural landmark. The building has been featured in television shows and films, including the opening credits of the soap opera General Hospital, and sits next to LA General Medical Center, a major teaching hospital and trauma center anchoring the Restorative Care Village complex.
The redevelopment is one of several healthcare-focused real estate plays taking place in the nation, with developers building apartments near medical services — from community-focused clinics to specialty hospitals — and other resident-serving amenities like parks and grocery stores.
Across the country, historic hospitals are being reimagined to meet modern urban needs, including homes and services. In Washington, D.C., the St. Elizabeths Hospital campus is being transformed into a mixed-use district featuring housing, retail, offices and a major new hospital facility. In Chicago, the long-abandoned Cook County Hospital has been restored and repurposed into a mixed-use complex that now includes a hotel, medical offices and a food hall.
The mixed-use overhaul also comes amid a wave of public-private development deals across Los Angeles, where the city and county are under mounting pressure to address the region’s housing needs. Redeveloping underused public land has become a strategy in building supportive housing and mixed-use neighborhoods, with Los Angeles opening up some city-owned lands to meet its affordable housing goals and California expanding a statewide program aimed to pair obsolete government-owned land with affordable housing development firms.
Long-awaited second act
The historic General Hospital is a 19-story, 1.9 million-square-foot Art Deco tower that looms over Boyle Heights, with more than 600 windows punctuating its white concrete façade. Completed in 1934 as a federal Public Works Administration project, the building was one of the largest hospitals in the world at the time, designed to withstand earthquakes and accommodate over 1,000 patients.
Its grand entrance, inscribed with the words “The Caring and Healing of Humanity,” and its soaring marble lobby reflect an era when public architecture aimed to inspire civic pride.
The hospital closed in 2008 due to seismic code failures triggered by the 1994 Northridge quake, and medical care has since moved to a new, modern facility located just a few blocks away. Hospital workers and families of patients of the General Medical Center can often be seen milling about the grounds of the shuttered General Hospital, which has become something of a community gathering place.
The General Hospital overhaul is being led by Centennial Partners, a new team made up of locally based Primestor and Bayspring Real Estate Partners, selected through a 2023 process that involved the community. The group will use the funds to begin surveying and technical analysis, with plans to propose a master design by year’s end, subject to community feedback and environmental review.
In June, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a no-cost lease of the General Hospital site to the development team to begin a two-year remediation process. The work will include a seismic retrofit of the main building and demolition of 18 structures across the campus. Current tenants, including the community wellness center, will need to be temporarily relocated during this phase.
Primestor has led the redevelopment of the Jordan Downs housing complex in South Los Angeles and restored the historic Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building in the city's West Adams district. Bayspring, meanwhile, specializes in adaptive reuse and redevelopment and has entitled 1,346 acres on the West Coast for development.
As the next part of the planning phase, the development team must submit a final report with planning outcomes and a draft community benefits agreement by the end of 2025, setting the stage for formal redevelopment. Once this phase concludes, Centennial Partners will assume responsibility for all future costs tied to predevelopment and entitlement.
Despite community support, the General Hospital redevelopment faces significant headwinds. Seismic retrofitting of the nearly century-old structure will be costly and complex, and environmental remediation could reveal additional hazards that slow progress. The project also depends on long-term funding, entitlements and interagency coordination, all of which can delay timelines and drive up costs.
The project also calls for exploring the creation of a Climate Resilience District, which could help fund infrastructure and sustainability improvements. County officials hope to apply for historic designation for the Art Deco hospital building, unlocking preservation funding and tax incentives to support its rehabilitation.
Affordable housing
Over the decades, the Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles neighborhoods surrounding the hospital have seen sweeping demographic and economic shifts. Once a multiethnic enclave of Jewish, Japanese and Mexican communities, the area became predominantly Latino by the 1980s and has long been a hub of immigrant culture, according to data from the city's planning department.
More recently, rising housing costs and new transit infrastructure have sparked concerns about gentrification, even as residents continue to push for development that reflects the community’s heritage and addresses longstanding inequities in healthcare, housing and public investment.
The General Hospital redevelopment offers a rare chance to deliver affordable housing and essential services to a part of the city that has long gone underserved. Southeast Los Angeles remains one of the region’s most-underbuilt multifamily markets, according to CoStar research.
Average rents hover around $1,780 a month, roughly 25% below the countywide average, drawing working-class renters seeking relief from sky-high housing costs, according to CoStar data.
Despite that demand, development has lagged. Only 600 apartments were added in the past year, and no new projects are currently under construction.
“We’re committed to delivering a revitalized space that supports affordable housing, small businesses, workers and vibrant and healthy living," said a statement from Kelly LoBianco, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity.