Relocation Of Business

On Monday, the first patients will walk into a gleaming new building in Boyle Heights, the new home of one of nation's largest public hospitals. Two dozen outpatient clinics are to open at the new Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, part of a decades-long effort to replace the Depression-era hospital that has long been the linchpin of the region's public health and trauma system. Monday's opening is the first step in a series of gradual moves into the new $1.02-billion facility, which covers 1.5 million square feet over the length of three city blocks and whose highest tower is eight stories.

Vroman's lent book carts. The Los Feliz Library brought more carts and donated lanyards. Duttons sold them its phone system, a rack for greeting cards and lots of other supplies. Skylight Books was bursting out of its Vermont Avenue location and, one day last week, invited volunteers to help move a big chunk of its stock to the new addition down the street, called 1814. Being a neighborhood bookstore is part of what co-owner Kerry Slattery attributes to Skylight's success. It hosts readings, a new salon series and special events that keep people coming back.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment has leased Creative Artists Agency Inc.'s former Beverly Hills headquarters, an I.M. Pei building that has a mural by Roy Lichtenstein in its 57-foot-high atrium. The group, a venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann, will move in by the end of the year, Michael Ovitz, a founder of the Hollywood talent agency and building owner, said this week at the Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. Sony BMG spokesman John McKay declined to comment.

Jilted fans of runaway sports franchises -- long lost lovers of the Baltimore Colts, the original Cleveland Browns, the Los Angeles Rams and even the L.A. Raiders -- now, more than ever, I know your pain. The reason it feels as if I just swallowed a handful of hot embers? It's my hometown team, the SuperSonics of Seattle. I grew up watching them, me and my dad, up in the cheap seats, game after game.

AT&T Inc., the biggest U.S. phone company, will move its headquarters to Dallas from San Antonio to be closer to suppliers. About 700 employees will be affected by the relocation, which AT&T said it hoped to complete this year. The company currently has almost 6,000 workers in San Antonio. The change will help AT&T meet staffing needs and save on air-travel costs, the company said.

On Sunday, 2,100 doctors, nurses, technicians and managers at UCLA Medical Center will participate in a task of epic proportions: moving to the gleaming new hospital across the street. Although the distance is short, the details are daunting. The shift to the new Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center will require military-style precision.

Variety, a venerable trade publication for the entertainment business, agreed Thursday to move its offices a few blocks down Wilshire Boulevard to a high-rise across from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that will be renamed the Variety Building. "After 20 years at our current location, we need more space" for the publication, said Michael Speier, executive editor of news at Variety. The daily newspaper and parent company Reed Business Information should move to their new quarters by year-end, said Wayne Ratkovich, president of Ratkovich Co., owner of the 30-story tower at 5900 Wilshire Blvd.

The Barnes Foundation won the latest round in a legal dispute over a plan to move its collection of Impressionist art to Philadelphia, against the wishes of some residents in the museum's current suburban location. Judge Stanley Ott of Montgomery County Orphans' Court said the Friends of the Barnes Foundation lacked legal standing to oppose the relocation of the Barnes Museum from its home in Merion, Pa., where the collection has been since 1925. Though "the intensity of concern" by the Friends of the Barnes group is "real and commendable," the organization lacked an "actual interest" in the matter, Ott wrote this week.

When the wind blows across the arid river basin, dust swirls and scatters over the sun-heated earth of this small farming town, sneaking into buildings on pant legs and the tops of shoes. Once the dust settles, someone invariably walks into Dan Gates' hardware store on E Street looking for a push broom and a box of a cleaning compound called Kleen Sweep. Gates used to sell about a box a week. Lately he has been selling boxes by the pallet.

Emerson College, seeking to upgrade its film and television training center, is relocating the program to Hollywood from Burbank. The Boston-based school, known for its communications and acting curriculum, will build a facility on the former Tribune Studios lot in Hollywood to teach and house the 95 Emerson students who pass through its Los Angles Center program each semester.