Valley Clinic Prepares for Expanded Role

Overwhelmed by more patients than it can serve, Valley Community Clinic will move into a larger, $5.5-million building next week, allowing the North Hollywood facility to expand its health-care services to the region’s indigent and working poor.

By making the move from its cramped Vineland Avenue location to the larger building at Coldwater Canyon Avenue and Vanowen Street, clinic officials say they will have more room to treat the 20,000 patients now served annually as well as the 10,400 patients it turns away.

“In this economic climate ... we are grateful that this expansion will allow us to provide vitally needed medical and health services to so many more hard-working, low-income, uninsured people,” said Ann Brit, clinic president and chief executive.

Eventually, the larger quarters will allow the clinic to offer prenatal, pediatric and dental care, which patients have identified as critically needed services, clinic officials said.

Work crews have spent the past month painting, laying carpet and installing cabinets at the two-story, 45,000-square-foot building. Clinic staff members, who plan to move into the new facility March 16, expect to see patients on March 18.

The new facility is a former medical office built to meet state codes for parking, wheelchair accessibility and other licensing requirements for medical facilities, officials said.

The clinic’s current space is a cluster of converted retail stores totaling about 10,500 square feet with limited street parking.

Clinic officials said they expect that within three years the annual number of general medical visits will increase from 20,000 to 45,000, counseling center visits from 4,700 to 8,420 and teen health-center visits from 14,500 to 28,000.

About 40% of the building is occupied by medical service providers that lease space from the clinic, officials said.

The lease payments would help finance the prenatal, pediatric and dental services, among other uses.

The decision to move into the new site represents a shift in direction for clinic officials, who two years ago had planned to move into a proposed commercial development across the street from the North Hollywood subway station.

The clinic fit the concept for commercial development in the subway station area because it met a need for local residents, according to Community Redevelopment Agency officials.

Some business owners in the area, however, said the clinic was incompatible with the aim of the redevelopment project to attract mid-level to upscale stores, restaurants and entertainment venues to the subway site.

Enthusiasm for the site cooled among the clinic’s board of directors after it discussed the proposal with its benefactors.

“We surveyed our community, and a lot of our supporters were skeptical about the clinic ever moving into the building by the 2006 completion date,” clinic spokeswoman Judi Rose said.

Consequently, the board decided in August that finding a larger facility would be its top priority.

The board learned that one of the clinic’s volunteer doctors was a member of a physicians’ group that had recently purchased the Coldwater Canyon Avenue property after its previous owner went bankrupt.

Negotiators from both sides agreed on the $5.5-million sale price in October and closed escrow Jan. 31, officials said.

The clinic recently launched a funding campaign to help pay off its debt. It was awarded a $1.5-million federal grant administered by the city of Los Angeles for providing health-care services to the community.