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Monday, Mar 18, 2024

Jewish Home Center Nears Completion

The Los Angeles Jewish Home for the Aging is a few months away from completing its $58 million residential center and will likely begin a capital campaign to build a new independent-living residence for seniors on the site of a soon-to-be-demolished building. The Joyce Eisenberg-Keefer Medical Center, built on the Home’s Grancell Village campus in Reseda, should be open to new residents later this year, said Molly Forrest, CEO of the Home. “We’re getting very close, it should be finished in either late May or early June,” Forrest said. “It has to go through a number of inspections from the state before we can admit the first residents. We anticipate that the inspections might take 60 to 90 days.” Construction on the building began in early 2004. It was originally budgeted at $52 million, but increases in construction and materials costs drove the final bill up to $58 million. The new medical center is the largest expansion in the Home’s history, and will house 249 residents when it opens, including over 100 from another building that will be demolished upon the opening of the new medical center. In place of the demolished building, the home plans to start construction on the Bross-Bresler Center, which will be occupied by residents who do not need the full continuum of care provided by the Home. “We already have zoning approval for 108 units, we’ll have one and two bedrooms anywhere from 800 square feet to about 1,400 square feet, with a dining room and living room. . .and underground parking,” said Forrest. “This is really geared to appeal to younger seniors who don’t need to be cared for at this time, they just want to know that if they need more services, they would be available.” Earl Greinetz, who has been chair of the home and its fundraising committee, led the capital campaign that started in 1999 to raise money for the Eisenberg-Keefer Medical Center and the Paul Goldenberg Daphna and Richard Ziman Special Care Center dedicated in 2002, said a new campaign to raise money for the Bross-Bresler Center could start within the next couple of months. “A lady in Palm Springs gave us the initial donation of $4 million,” said Greinetz. “We’ll need between $25 million and $30 million to complete the plan. There’s going to be some sophistication put into that building. We’ll try to hold it to $25 million, but costs are going up all the time.” The Home, which opened in 1912, will be able to house more than 1,100 residents when the Eisenberg-Keefer Center is opened later this year.

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