Councilman’s Proposal Puts Drug Clinic in Jeopardy : Lake View Terrace: Ernani Bernardi thinks that the planned site for Phoenix House would be better used as a city administrative office.

Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi will ask city officials today to take a new look at buying the defunct Lake View Medical Center, a move that could upset a recently revived plan to develop the 15-acre property as a drug rehabilitation center.

“We should take a second look because it is being sold for less than half its original price,” Bernardi said Monday of the facility in Lake View Terrace.

Phoenix House, a nationwide nonprofit group, is seeking to buy the property for $3.2 million for use as a center for treating 150 adolescent drug abusers. The group, which refused to comment on Bernardi’s plan, also sought to buy the site in 1989 when the price was $7.6 million. That effort ended when loud community protests caused Nancy Reagan, who had lent her support to the plan, to withdraw from the project. Reagan’s endorsement was critical to raising money for the acquisition.

Bernardi denied that he was urging the city to buy the property only to stop the Phoenix House project. The drug program’s renewed site-acquisition plan, which was announced last week, triggered a sign-waving demonstration last weekend by opponents who live nearby.

“It would be an ideal place for an administrative center,” said Bernardi, who opposed the earlier attempt by the Phoenix House to buy the former hospital site. “It’s in the middle of the fast-growing part of the city . . . where there’s need for a new police station and a new library.”

The lower price for the property also should make it attractive to the city, Bernardi said.

The medical center went bankrupt in 1984 and closed in 1986.

At Bernardi’s request, the city administrative office in 1989 canvassed various city departments to measure their interest in using the hospital’s facilities. That poll turned up only “minimal” interest in the building, according to a September, 1989, city report.

“The majority of city departments reported that this site was not suitable primarily because of its location in the northeast corner of the city,” the report noted. Also, the report stated that significant remodeling would be required to make the facility usable as office space.

About 30% to 40% of the building’s interior space is not usable for offices, the report said.

“Additionally, the vast number of restrooms will be costly to remove,” it said.

To operate a drug rehabilitation center, Phoenix House will need a conditional use permit from the city.

In 1989, the program’s proposed purchase of the site was conditioned upon its receipt of the permit.

The present deal does not contain such a provision, said Rick Seidenwurm, a San Diego attorney representing the hospital’s creditors in the bankruptcy proceeding. “This is a quick, no contingency sale,” Seidenwurm said.

Phoenix House is to take ownership of the property 25 days after a bankruptcy court agrees to the sale.

A court hearing on the sale is set for June 4. The drug program has put up $300,000 in earnest money toward the purchase.