Construction is in progress for a $335-million Behavioral Health Center at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Willowbrook.

The project will repurpose one of the hospital's existing buildings - designed by the architect Paul Revere Williams - into a 500,000-square-foot facility featuring inpatient, outpatient, and supportive services for persons suffering from mental illness, substance use disorders, and homelessness.

HOK is serving as the project's architect, while Bernards is serving as its general contractor.

In addition to preserving and restoring the existing five-story edifice, plans call for repurposing the building's rooftop and courtyard areas for recreational uses.  Los Angeles County, which owns the facility, will also upgrade the building's facade, plumbing, heating, and power systems with the aim of achieving LEED Silver certification.

The initial phase of construction is scheduled for completion in October 2020, with phase two anticipated to wrap up work in June 2021.

The MLK Community Hospital Campus dates back to the early 1970s, when it opened as the Martin Luther King Jr. General Hospital in the wake of the Watts riots.  In the decades that followed, horrific tales of preventable deaths at the facility gave it a new, derivise nickname - "Killer King."  The hospital would later close in 2007, and did not reopen under its current identity until 2015.

The medical campus sits just west of Metro's Willowbrook/Rosa Parks Station, which is now in the closing stages of a $109-million renovaiton.