Seismic

A vision for health, livability and community.

In Southern California, earthquakes are a fact of life — we must not be panicked, but we must be prepared and plan in the best interest of the community. The current campus was built to 1950’s seismic standards and BCHD will address seismic issues as part of the proposed Healthy Living Campus project. In fact, one of the six project objectives established for the proposed Healthy Living Campus is to: eliminate seismic safety and other hazards of the former South Bay Hospital Building (514 N. Prospect Ave. in Redondo Beach)

After a review of the seismic state of the building by consultants, in addition to escalating maintenance costs, a financial analysis concluded that it is more cost effective to rebuild than to retrofit.

BCHD’s mission is to provide preventive health and wellness programs and services for residents. We must be proactive in addressing potential seismic occurrences on our proposed Healthy Living Campus to maintain the assets that fund the 40 programs and services BCHD provides to the community.

“As per your request, Nabih Youssef Associates provides this letter discussing the seismic vulnerability of the 514 Building on the Beach Cities Health District campus. The 4-story north and south towers were originally constructed in 1958 and 1967, respectively. The building is of nonductile concrete construction. Buildings of this type of construction have not performed well in past earthquakes and are considered highly vulnerable to collapse in a major earthquake. The City of Los Angeles adopted a mandatory seismic retrofit ordinance for nonductile concrete buildings in October 2015 to mitigate the hazard these buildings pose. The Cities of West Hollywood and Santa Monica have subsequently adopted similar ordinances. The City of Redondo Beach does not currently have a mandatory retrofit ordinance. Thus, there is no requirement to retrofit or demolish the building.

The Federal government, Veterans Affairs, State of California, University of California and California State University have adopted seismic safety standards for their owned and leased buildings to establish minimum evaluation and mitigation measures to ensure acceptable level of earthquake safety for the management of seismic life safety risk. The seismic performance criteria contained in these standards typically exceed building code provisions for existing buildings.

We evaluated the 514 Building in 2017 and recommended seismic strengthening to improve performance. We understand that Beach Cities Health District (BCHD) has determined the recommended seismic strengthening is not economically feasible and intends to demolish the building within 5 years to mitigate the hazard. Given the vulnerability of the building and poor performance of non-ductile concrete buildings in past earthquakes, demolition is prudent.”

– NABIH YOUSSEF & ASSOCIATES (NYA) STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS

For more information on the seismic state of the 514 N. Prospect Ave. building, please visit our website: