Proposed senior facility near La Cañada delayed as it heads for further study
A proposed three-story, 35,000-square-foot senior-living facility across from USC Verdugo Hills Hospital in north Glendale has been put on hold while the site owner conducts additional studies about how the project might affect a neighboring property.
The studies will look at how the potential construction noise and vibration would impact an existing medical office building located on the project site at 1809 Verdugo Blvd., Glendale city planner Dennis Joe wrote in a letter to stakeholders.
During a Design Review Board meeting on Aug. 22, city staff announced the project would be taken off the board’s calendar and return at an undetermined time, according to city spokeswoman Eliza Papazian.
The decision by owner Stuart “Harry” Ahn to conduct further studies came after a public-comment period that spanned from July 8 to 29.
“There’s been such an outcry from people in the building about how we’re going to work, how we’re going to serve our patients and community. It’s going to be really challenging if it goes through,” said Marie Poore, a psychotherapist who has been practicing in the adjacent four-story, 35,980 square-foot office building for 25 years.
Ahn owns a 52% stake in the nearby medical office building, which will remain on the site under the current proposal. Ahn did not respond to a request for comment.
Originally proposed in October 2017, Ahn was asked to complete a study looking at traffic and construction noise, according to Erik Krause, the city’s deputy director of community development.
Input from the city of La Cañada Flintridge, which borders the site, spurred the further review, he added.
La Cañada Flintridge “remains extremely concerned” about the project’s impacts regarding noise, traffic and air quality, wrote Susan Koleda, La Cañada Flintridge’s director of community development, in a letter to Joe dated July 29.
In addition to the 79-bed senior facility, to be called La Cañada Assisted Living, the proposal includes plans for two new multilevel parking garages.
If the project moves forward as currently planned, it would be completed in just under nine months and require about 882 truck trips to haul away 8,000 cubic yards of dust, according to a city report. Also, an existing surface parking lot would be demolished.
Text on wooden signs giving notice about the project were recently taken down, but the signposts remain, Poore said.
“So I have a feeling [the project] is not going away,” she said. “Now, we’re just resting until we have to make our next charge up the hill.”