Hospital buys land to close adult store
| Wednesday, Sep 01 2010 06:29 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, Sep 01 2010 06:29 PM
San Joaquin Community Hospital has purchased nearby land downtown in order to close an adult store the Seventh-day Adventist hospital has long abhorred.
The hospital formed a limited liability company called Itani Investment Group and bought several parcels on the east side of Chester Avenue, according to documents filed with the county Recorder's Office.
"When the Wildcat property became available, we seriously started thinking about purchasing it to close the store," said Robert J. Beehler, president and chief executive officer of San Joaquin. "Then we started thinking about purchasing property around it with the idea of someday being able to have a medical corridor on both sides of the street."
The parcel acquired in December housed Wildcat, 2620 Chester Ave., which until recently sold adult books, videos and related products. The hospital paid owner Bakersfield Adult Video Inc. $750,000 for the land and building, according to public records.
Then separately this summer the hospital bought two parking lots behind it and two lots north of it, paying $525,000 to husband and wife joint owners Mutaser and Ragheed Ammari, and $130,000 to Rahir Helo.
San Joaquin had to honor the remaining six months of Wildcat's lease after acquiring its building, but did not renew it, said hospital spokeswoman Suzanne Satterfield.
Rent from the porn store was used to pay for a pediatrician in Haiti, she said.
Wildcat had been doing business on Chester for 25 years before it closed this year, and was in another location before that.
San Joaquin said there are no immediate plans or funding to redevelop the purchased land, but it would like to build a medical campus there at some point.
If that happened, it would expand on the already growing concentration of medical buildings on the block.
Kaiser Permanente Kern County is in the process of renovating a building just south of the hospital at 2531 Chester Ave. That building, expected to open at the end of the year, will consolidate specialty services such as head and neck surgery, ophthalmology, podiatry, respiratory care and wound care. Radiology, a pharmacy and a lab are planned there, too.
"This is an exciting addition to the services we offer Kern County," Kaiser director of operations Leslie Golich said in a statement e-mailed Wednesday. "This new facility will establish a presence for us in the downtown community and will be in close proximity to our acute care partner, San Joaquin Community Hospital."
-- Staff writer Gretchen Wenner contributed to this report.
