A new plan has emerged to build a 300,000-square-foot biomedical campus on 25 acres of the West L.A. Veterans Administration complex, where community leaders and area elected officials are in a long-running battle to limit any development.
The proposal has been presented to the city’s Business Team by Jenkins/Gales & Martinez, Inc., a politically connected Los Angeles construction management and design firm that has worked on a variety of local projects, including the restoration of City Hall.
Also with an interest in the project is Dr. Patrick Soon Shiong, a former St. Vincent’s Medical Center researcher who is now chairman and chief executive of a Santa Monica-based generic pharmaceutical manufacturer called American BioScience Inc., sources said.
Jonathan Kevles, director of the business team, did not return requests for an interview, but Mayor James Hahn’s press secretary Julie Wong confirmed that the team is “aware of” and “tracking” the project, though she declined to give details.
An outline of the development obtained by the Business Journal calls it the “Proposed Waxman Campus at the WLA VA,” in an apparent reference to Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democratic stalwart who represents West L.A. and has fought to prevent the V.A. from developing the site.
The document describes a development in the heart of the complex north of Wilshire Blvd. and west of the San Diego Freeway that would involve the demolition of nine existing buildings, and the construction of six new ones, including facilities for cell therapy, cancer and cardiac disease and outpatient care. It also claims local VA officials have approved the concept, with groundbreaking targeted for next June.
However, a top local VA official said he has never even heard of the plan, while an aide to Waxman said she has only heard of it second-hand and is perplexed why the Congressman’s name would be referenced by proponents.
“I have never come across anything so bizarre,” said the aide, who also has seen the development outline.
Development on hold
Phil Thomas, chief executive of the VA Greater Los Angeles, was out of town and could not be reached for comment. But Ralph Tillman, the VA’s director of asset management, said neither he nor other top officials were aware of it. Moreover, he noted that any development on the site is on hold pending approval by Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi of a 25-year development plan for the 388-acre Brentwood campus.
“As director of asset management I can’t imagine that I would not know,” Tillman said.
The development outline calls for developing the complex in an area bounded by Nimitz, Bonsall, Pershing and MacArthur avenues, now the location of two VA nursing homes and an extended care facility. Tillman said the area was not even “up” for development.
Calls to the design firm, also known as JGM, were referred to principal Earl Gales Jr., a Hahn campaign contributor who co-hosted a fundraiser for Gov. Gray Davis during his 1998 run for governor. Gales could not be reached for comment.
Soon Shiong, whose offices are on Wilshire Boulevard near the VA complex, did not return repeated telephone calls for comment.
Development at the West L.A. complex has been controversial for years seen as prime commercial property and a potential funding source for veterans services but opposed by surrounding homeowners who fear the congestion and noise it would bring.
Past development plans prompted the late Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif., to author The Cranston Act of 1988, which protects 109 acres from development. But earlier this year local VA officials proposed a 25-year plan that would “incorporate” the principles of the Act but supercede it, allowing for up to 7.2 million square feet of commercial development.
The plan has drawn stiff opposition of elected officals who represent the area, including Waxman, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski.
Debbie Dyner, Miscikowski’s chief field deputy, said she was aware of the biomedical campus proposal after being informed of it by the business team, but said she has dismissed it after contacting the VA herself and being informed no one there was aware of it.
“At this point its not real as far as we are concerned,” Dyner said.
Research notoriety
Soon Shiong is less well known locally than Gales, but he garnered some fleeting national fame in the mid ’90s as a researcher at St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles.
He reported success in implanting insulin-secreting islet cells into a diabetic a so-called artificial pancreas freeing him from insulin shots. He started a company called VivoRx Inc. to capitalize on the work, but the cells ultimately failed.
He later started privately held American BioScience, which went into the generic drug manufacturing business after buying a pharmaceutical product line from Fujisawa USA Inc., the American subsidiary of a Japanese company.
Most recently, American BioScience has become entangled into a wide-ranging Federal Trade Commission probe into alleged collusion between generic and big pharmaceutical companies to keep high-priced drugs on the market.
The proposal for a biomedical complex at the Brentwood site is not the first. Four years ago the Southern California Biomedical Council proposed a research park, but abandoned the plan in the face of opposition from veterans and area homeowners.
