County-USC Quake Toll Is $1 Billion : Recovery: Local officials hope to persuade federal, state authorities to pay for new center instead of making repairs.

Tallying the bill from what is believed to be the worst natural disaster absorbed by a hospital in U.S. history, local officials on Thursday placed earthquake-related costs to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center at $1 billion and asked federal and state authorities to fund a $1.3 billion state-of-the-art medical center rather than make repairs.

The damage estimate concludes nine months of evaluations and surveys by architects and engineers and greatly exceeds original estimates of $400 million.

All told, 19 of 128 buildings in the 72-acre Boyle Heights complex are scheduled to be demolished, including the psychiatric and pediatric hospitals.

County officials hope to persuade the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state Office of Emergency Services to forgo repairs and instead fund construction of a new center, which had already been planned before last January’s earthquake. Approval of the relief funds would be a huge boost for the project, originally scheduled for completion by 2002, and could even speed up it up by two to three years.

Medical center officials expressed confidence in their position that it is more cost-effective to replace the facility than to pump millions into repairs.

“We feel the architectural plans have been developed very carefully; we have followed all of the steps and feel the outcome will be favorable,” medical center Executive Director Edward L. Martinez said in presenting recovery cost assessments to FEMA and Office of Emergency Services officials at a morning news conference.

The elaborate ceremony, held in front of the damaged pediatric pavilion, was attended by dozens of elected officials, local health administrators and representatives of state and federal agencies.

Daryl Wait, regional public assistance officer for FEMA, said his agency will work jointly with state and local officials to review the assessment and will respond within three weeks.

“We’ve been on the site from Day 1 and I think we have a good grasp of the damage,” he said. “We haven’t come up with any figure or dollar amount, but in terms of eligibility for the money, we will be looking at how precise these (assessments) are.”

Robert C. Gates, director of the county Department of Health Services, stressed that there was a compelling need even before the earthquake either to replace the hospital or begin costly repairs.

Many of the facilities, including General Hospital and Women’s and Children’s Hospital, do not meet seismic safety codes. The buildings lack fire detection systems or sprinklers and have no air conditioning and other safety and environmental systems that are standard in modern hospitals.

Local health officials have been under a federal mandate for years to correct the deficiencies or lose licensing and accreditation.

The county proposes to replace the old complex with a 946-bed hospital.