Hospital Breaking Ground on New Building

Childrens Hospital Los Angeles will break ground today on a $65- million building that will serve as the new entrance to the historic hospital at Sunset Boulevard and Vermont Avenue.

“This is the start of the full replacement of the hospital,” said Chief Executive Bill Noce. Childrens is among a number of hospitals in Southern California that are planning retrofits or replacing buildings to meet new earthquake safety standards.

But Noce said the 314-bed nonprofit hospital would need new facilities even if it didn’t have to meet seismic safety requirements, because it has outgrown its existing buildings and its facilities have become outdated.

“We have really reached and exceeded the power requirements of the hospital,” Noce said. “It was absolutely essential that we updated and expanded our central power plant, which this building will do.”

The hospital’s new building will include the Burtie Green Bettingen Surgery Center, designed to accommodate the growing surgical practice at Childrens, which has expanded from just over 8,000 procedures per year in 1993 to more than 10,000 a year today, Noce said.

The new building, referred to informally as the Gateway Building, is scheduled to be completed by 2001, in time for the hospital’s 100th anniversary. Replacing the in-patient beds will be part of the second phase of the hospital replacement, which Childrens hopes to complete by 2008, Noce said.

Designed by Santa Monica-based architectural firm Lee, Burkhart, Liu Inc., the 105,000-square-foot building will be constructed by Irvine-based contractor Rudolph & Sletten. The project’s $65-million cost will be financed in part by $32 million the hospital has generated in a four-year fund-raising campaign. The remainder will come from depreciation, retained earnings and several capital funds the hospital has maintained over the years.

Noce said the building will feature a number of design elements intended to make it more inviting to children and “to create a sense of playfulness,” including bright, colorful murals and creatures with names like “Sigalertassaurus,” which will look something like huge stuffed animals. The Sigalertassaurus, exterior landscaping and a number of other design elements were created by volunteers from Walt Disney Imagineering, Noce said.

The $32 million contributed for the project includes major donations from a number of foundations and individuals. Among them is Burton G. Bettingen Corp., a foundation that contributed to the fund-raising campaign in the name of Burtie Green Bettingen, a daughter of real estate developer, oilman and Beverly Hills co-founder Burton E. Green. Other major donors include the John Stauffer Foundation, the Weingart Foundation and Anna Murdoch, wife of media magnate Rupert Murdoch, who donated the largest single gift of $1 million and headed the fund-raising campaign.

Noce said that although Childrens has named the surgery center, the lobby and other parts of the building for contributors in the fund-raising campaign, it has not formally named the building and may continue referring to it as the Gateway Building.

However, “If a donor were to come forward, we would name the building for a sufficiently large donation,” he said.

According to a hospital history, Childrens was founded in 1901 with four beds in a converted private home and served 14 patients its first year. The number of patient visits has grown to approximately 200,000 a year, with patients ranging in age from newborn to 18.

The hospital serves as the teaching affiliate for pediatrics for USC School of Medicine and operates a research program focusing on five major pediatric areas: cancer, genetics, neuroscience, cell biology and immunology. Since 1990, Childrens has ranked among the top pediatric facilities in an annual survey by U.S. News & World Report.