Mark Ridley-Thomas Behavioral Health Center

Coffman provided fire protection and fire life safety consulting as part of the HOK-Bernards design-build team for the adaptive repurpose of the former Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital into a 500,000 gsf behavioral health facility. The new facility will provide mental and public health services for some of Los Angeles’ most vulnerable populations including those experiencing homelessness, substance use disorders, and mental illness.

Coffman developed the fire protection/life safety strategy for the project and assisted the design-build team with navigating the building code complexities encountered when a facility undergoes a change in use from a decommissioned former hospital building into a new behavioral health facility. We leveraged our experience with institutional type occupancies across healthcare and detention facilities to develop a code analysis that allowed the design-build team to eliminate the requirement to retrofit a new smoke control system in the existing building. This solution created significant cost savings for the design-build team. The project is scheduled for completion in June 2021.

Renderings credit: HOK