Originally accessed:
6/21/2004
Organization:
University of California Board of Regents
Notes:
Regents amended the budget for the UCLA capital improvements and capital improvement program for the Westwood replacement hospital; certified the environmental impact report, amended the long range development plan and approved the design of the hospital; and approved the external financing for the hospital. The hospital is needed to replace the existing Center for Health Sciences, which suffered significant structural damage as a result of the Jan. 1994 Northridge earthquake. It does not meet state life safety standards. Construction of a new hospital will replace the damaged medical center, Children’s Hospital and Neuropsychiatric Hospital. The Westwood replacement hospital is a proposed 517,000 assignable square foot (1,045.000 gross square foot) facility, containing 525 inpatient beds and 63 beds for short-term hospitalization. A 333-vehicle parking facility is to be built under the hospital, with an additional 170 parking spaces to be constructed at a location to be determined. The hospital will be built on the current location of parking structure 14, which is immediately north of the UCLA Medical Plaza outpatient complex. The base project cost of the Academic Health Center Facilities Reconstruction Plan (of which the Westwood replacement hospital is the first part) is projected at approximately $1.271 billion. Funding for the plan includes $707.6 million (which includes grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, state matching funds for the FEMA grants, state outlay funds, insurance proceeds, cash reserves of the hospital system); $419 million in donor funds (of which $120.5 million has been pledged) and $14.4 million in hospital external financing. The Westwood replacement hospital base project cost is estimated at $577 million. The proposed source of funding would consist of $432.9 million of federal dollars, through the FEMA-sponsored Seismic Hazard Mitigation Program for Hospitals; $44.1 million in matching funds from the state; and $100 million in long-term external financing to be repaid from medical center revenues. Capitalized interest and financing costs are estimated to add another $20.7 million to the project costs. The total project cost of $597.7 million does not include $75 million in medical equipment that would be funded separately from hospital reserves in the two years prior to completion of the new hospital. (The second project proposed in this development concerns the Santa Monica Replacement Hospital. Approvals for it – which would include a capital budget amendment, design and certification of the EIR, LRDP amendment and external financing – are expected to come before the Board of Regents at its March 1999 meeting.)"