Larger Home Near Subway Proposed for Valley Clinic

Swamped with far more patients than it can serve, the Valley Community Clinic would move into a new North Hollywood building that is twice as large, allowing it to greatly expand its health service programs, under a proposal announced Thursday.

In a plan already garnering some public opposition, developer J. Allen Radford proposed the clinic move into a 20,000-square-foot building he plans to construct as part of a major commercial development across the street from the North Hollywood subway station opening next month.

“We are thrilled,” said Diane Chamberlain, an administrator at the clinic, now at 5648 Vineland Ave. “We turn away people every day who come here for basic medical care. We don’t have enough space, enough exam rooms to see everyone.”

Doubling the size of its facility would allow the clinic to begin offering dental care and job-training programs, as well as double its optometry service, which already provides eye exams and glasses to 4,600 low-income residents each year.

The new facility would also allow the clinic to expand its primary health-care services, family planning and HIV testing and education programs provided annually to 20,000 low-income, uninsured or unemployed patients.

“We are bursting at the seams right now, and this will allow us to provide some services that are really needed in the community,” Chamberlain said.

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Some business owners in the area, however, say the clinic is not compatible with the aim of the redevelopment project to attract mid-level to upscale stores, restaurants and entertainment venues to the area around the subway station.

“We think it’s not a good idea,” said Mildred Weller, a business owner who serves on an elected citizens panel set up by the city to monitor redevelopment in North Hollywood.

“Having a free clinic in North Hollywood is important, but not at this location,” Weller said. “It’s not going to improve the business district. They are talking about having it near the movie theaters. How many parents are going to let their kids go to a movie theater next to a free clinic?”

Victor Viereck, an accountant who sits on the city panel, also criticized the location.

“We are trying to upgrade the area and that doesn’t sound like it is going in the right direction, to have a clinic for indigent people,” Viereck said. “We want the clinic in North Hollywood, just not on that prime site.”

Viereck said many had hoped the Red Line station opening June 24 would attract job-producing businesses that could lift North Hollywood’s sagging economy.

“It sounds like maybe Radford is getting desperate to find tenants,” Viereck said, adding he would ask the redevelopment committee to get a briefing on the clinic proposal.

Radford said the project is designed to make the clinic a separate element from the commercial and entertainment features of the development.

The clinic would be compatible with the commercial development, because it meets a need for service in North Hollywood and a new office being discussed for the facility could provide job training and placement for local residents to work in the surrounding businesses, according to Lillian Burkenheim, the North Hollywood project manager for the Community Redevelopment Agency.

“The clinic is going to fulfill an important role in the project,” Burkenheim said.