Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Anita May Rosenstein Campus ready to open

LA LGBT Anita May Rosenstein Campus

The Anita May Rosenstein Campus, the massive expansion of the LA LGBT Center, will offer 235 units of affordable and permanent housing for seniors and homeless youth. Photo: LA LGBT Center

HOLLYWOOD — The Anita May Rosenstein Campus, the massive expansion of the LA LGBT Center, will offer 235 units of affordable and permanent housing for seniors and homeless youth.

The $142 million campus, which will open Sunday, also will offer increased educational and employment programs for LGBT youth, including a culinary academy, 100 beds for homeless youth, and a state-of-the-art senior center.

A second stage of campus construction, slated for completion in 2020, will include 99 units of affordable housing for seniors and 25 supportive housing apartments for young people.

The campus, which will be the Center’s flagship facility, is located at Santa Monica Boulevard and McCadden Place and covers one city block. It will expand the footprint and services of the center’s The Village at Ed Gould Plaza, which is located across the street from the new campus and has movie theaters, art galleries, offices, and meeting spaces.

LGBTQ social services

“Nearly a decade ago, we began to dream of a project unlike any other — a beautiful multi-generational campus with new and expanded social services, together with affordable housing for seniors and youth,” LA LGBT Center CEO Lorri L. Jean said in a press statement.

“More than that, we dreamed of uniting it with The Village at Ed Gould Plaza, our arts, cultural and educational facility. Combined, the two locations will offer more integrated services for LGBT people than any other place in the world,” she said.

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Anita May Rosenstein Campus

The Rosenstein buildings are arranged around a series of courtyards and plazas that are intended to unify the programs offered at the Campus and Ed Gould Plaza.

The Rosenstein Campus also will free up space in the Center’s McDonald/Wright building on Schrader Boulevard, which will eventually be used for medical and mental healthcare, addiction recovery services, and HIV/STD testing and treatment.

The project first broke ground in March 2017. About 200 staff will work on the campus, which includes 350 subterranean parking spaces for residents and visitors.

LGBTQ seniors, homeless youth

The campus’ size reflects the needs in the LGBTQ community.

Affordable housing

The affordable housing units will be built in phase two, which should be completed by the middle of 2020. That portion of the project is estimated to cost $63 million.

  • 98 apartments for seniors
  • 25 apartments for youth

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Anita May Rosenstein

Rosenstein is the great-granddaughter of David May, founder of the May Department Stores Co. She gave the center a $8 million donation in 2014 when the nonprofit announced its expansion and fundraising campaign.

About the author

Phillip Zonkel

Award-winning journalist Phillip Zonkel spent 17 years at Long Beach's Press-Telegram, where he was the first reporter in the paper's history to have a beat covering the city's vibrant LGBTQ. He also created and ran the popular and innovative LGBTQ news blog, Out in the 562.

He won two awards and received a nomination for his reporting on the local LGBTQ community, including a two-part investigation that exposed anti-gay bullying of local high school students and the school districts' failure to implement state mandated protections for LGBTQ students.

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