Barlow Respiratory Hospital | Los Angeles Conservancy
Photo by Adrian Scott Fine/L.A. Conservancy

Barlow Respiratory Hospital

As of 2020, the Barlow Respiratory Hospital is working to seismically retrofit their historic 1927 hospital building.

In 2012, the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for the Barlow Respiratory Hospital Replacement and Master Plan project was published. In June of that year, the Conservancy submitted comments on the DEIR raising concerns about the fate of the historic hospital, a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM#504), and other historic structures within the National Register of Historic Places-eligible historic district. The 2012 Plan proposed to demolish twenty-one of the thirty-two structures contributing to the historic district.

For several years following the DEIR, the project remained dormant while the hospital reassessed its Master Plan. In 2018, CEO Amit Mohan announced the Master Plan to ReBuild Barlow. The new Master Plan will retrofit the historic hospital building and upgrade the facility's interior to contemporary standards. The second phase of the Master Plan will construct a new hospital wing adjacent to the existing.

Despite the designation as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument and is identified as a National Register-eligible historic district, the century-old former tuberculosis sanatorium has been at risk for years.

Gallery: 
Adrian Scott Fine/L.A. Conservancy
Barlow Respiratory Hospital, 2012

The Conservancy has met with Barlow Hospital’s development team to seek alternatives that save a greater number of historic buildings to protect the site’s landmark status.

While the draft EIR evaluated several alternatives that would retain more contributing structures, they either fail to meet project objectives aimed at keeping the hospital operational or they propose an overwhelming amount of new construction that would radically alter the village-like setting and jeopardize the site’s status as an HCM.

The Conservancy urges refinements or the development of new alternatives within the final EIR. New alternatives could reduce the number of proposed residential units and locate them in a manner more compatible with the massing, scale, and setting of the existing buildings and cultural landscape.