BCHD’s 11-acre campus – bordered by Prospect Avenue, Beryl Street, Diamond Street and Flagler Lane – was originally built as a hospital in the mid-1950s. When private hospital health care boomed in the South Bay, the publicly-elected Board of Directors voted to close the facility (in 1998) and shift the District's focus to community and preventive health. The old hospital building was leased to other medical and memory care providers and generates the majority of BCHD’s lease revenue to fund free programs and
services for the community.
The Healthy Living Campus addresses the health needs of the Beach Cities aging population, escalating maintenance costs as well as seismic and structural issues common with buildings built in the 1950s.
“We began imagining our modernized Healthy Living Campus in 2017 as an intergenerational project for all Beach Cities residents,” says BCHD CEO Tom Bakaly. “For the past three years, we’ve collected more than 1,300 public comments during more than 70 meetings and worked with financial, construction and environmental experts to minimize impacts on local neighborhoods while developing concepts that meet the changing health needs in the Beach Cities.”
“We’ll unveil our Refined Master Plan to the Board that safeguards our community’s older adults – allowing them to age in place – while generating revenue to secure our more than 40 programs and services for residents of all ages.”
Additional alterations in the Refined Master Plan include nearly doubling the size of the Center for Health and Fitness and including an aquatics center (in Phase 2), building a Community Wellness Pavilion with public meeting spaces and demonstration kitchen, as well as creating 2.45 acres of
open space for programming, exercise and community recreation.
Additionally, the revamped RCFE community will include a Program for All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), which provides comprehensive medical and social services to older adults in the Beach Cities community.
