UCLA Health has selected a team of experts to transform a former medical center into a state-of-the-art neuropsychiatric hospital that will help address the region’s unmet need for behavioral health services.
Design, architecture, engineering and planning firm HOK and McCarthy Building Companies Inc. will oversee renovation of the former Olympia Medical Center. UCLA Health acquired the closed facility in the Mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles in December 2020.
The University of California Board of Regents approved project scope, design and financing on Nov. 17, 2022.
The 74 beds currently located in Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA in Westwood will be relocated to the new hospital, with room for additional beds and a planned total of 119. Plans also call for 20 additional observation beds.
“UCLA Health is making a major investment to expand patient access to mental and behavioral health care and address the region’s longstanding need for additional psychiatric beds,” said Johnese Spisso, president of UCLA Health and CEO of the UCLA Hospital System.
Based on current timetables, renovation of the 175,000-square-foot facility is expected to begin in May 2023, with an opening no sooner than spring 2026.
