LAKE VIEW TERRACE : Panel Rejects Plan to Buy Hospital Site

A Los Angeles City Council committee voted 3 to 0 Monday to reject a plan to buy the 14-acre Lake View Medical Center property, which closed its doors as a health care facility in the mid-1980s.

Area Councilman Ernani Bernardi had asked the city to consider buying the property in 1989 soon after failure of a controversial plan by Phoenix House, an anti-drug program sponsored by former First Lady Nancy Reagan, to purchase it for $7.7 million.

Bernardi originally asked city officials to determine if the city could use the land and the 165,000-square-foot hospital for a variety of municipal services, including a police substation and a library.

But a survey of city departments found little interest, partly because of the cost of refurbishing the hospital for office use and its location in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

At a hearing Monday before the council’s Administrative Services Committee, Bernardi recommended that the purchase plan be dropped.

Later, David Mays, Bernardi’s chief deputy, said local residents want the facility to be used again. The property now serves primarily as a film location, he said. “We’ve had no complaints about the upkeep of the property.”