Buy Empty Hospital, Bernardi Urges City

Los Angeles should consider buying the Lake View Terrace Medical Center for use as a community building now that plans have been dropped to house the Nancy Reagan center for drug rehabilitation there, Councilman Ernani Bernardi said Tuesday.

Under a motion introduced by Bernardi, the city administrative officer will prepare a report within 30 days that examines the possibility of turning the building into a city service center.

The future of the building, which housed the Lake View Terrace Medical Center until the hospital’s 1986 bankruptcy, was thrown up in the air Friday when Nancy Reagan announced that she was withdrawing support for the center that would have been named for her.

For more than a year, nearby residents had protested the proposed center, fearing that it would decrease property values and increase crime and drugs in the area.

Phoenix House, the nonprofit organization that was to have operated the center, on Tuesday formally withdrew its $7.7-million bid to buy the hospital, spokeswoman Pamela Powell said.

“Now that the deal is dead, I think we are in a great position to use it for a community center for this fast-growing area of the Valley,� Bernardi said.