Eddie Pech grew up in Boyle Heights.
His high school, Woodrow Wilson, is located a little over a mile from the USC Health Sciences campus.
He vividly recalls the former L.A. County General Hospital, the 1933 Art Deco landmark that sustained damage from the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and was permanently mothballed in 2008 following the opening of the new adjacent county hospital.
Word on the street was that the shuttered “Great Stone Mother,” once the largest hospital facility west of Chicago, was haunted.
Now, as he graduates with a Bachelor of Science in Real Estate Development (BRED), he views the vacant facility as more of a dream – a good one.
A second life for the L.A. County General Hospital
Pech, following the USC Price School Commencement ceremony on May 15 and a solo backtracking trek through Europe that will last through the end of June, will report to work as an assistant project manager at Primestor, the Culver City development company that specializes in urban infill and community-focused projects.
His first assignment: redevelopment of the former General Hospital building and West Campus into a sprawling, mixed-use residential and office complex over the next 10 to 15 years.
Talk about a full-circle moment.
“I’m like, wow,” says Pech, a first-generation college student whose parents immigrated from Mexico. “I grew up right down from the old hospital and never imagined it would have a second life.”
A clear-eyed purpose
Pech began working on the former general hospital project a year ago, when Primestor hired him as an intern.
One of his instructors, USC Price Adjunct Professor Ben J. Winter (who teaches the history of planning and development and whose day job is executive vice president at Linc Housing), had connected him with Leandro Tyberg, the president and co-founder of the minority-owned firm.
“I was immediately interested in the internship because it aligned with my own desire to have a positive impact on communities and to spread positivity,” Pech recalls.
Winter acknowledged Pech’s smarts in the classroom, but says he has other things going for him that have helped open professional opportunities.
“Take, for instance, him being clear-eyed about purpose,” Winter says. “He wanted to find a job that could improve the community he came from. Because he was rooted in that goal, he was able to act decisively when the internship opportunity at Primestor came around.”
“Eddie’s interests and skills both within and beyond real estate development will serve him well, and I know he has a bright future ahead.”
Assistant Professor Kate Nelischer
Kate Nelischer, Assistant professor (Teaching) at USC Price, in the Wilbur H. Smith III Department of Real Estate Development & Department of Urban Planning & Spatial Analysis, had Pech in two of her courses his fourth year.
“She taught me so much about the layout of sites for efficiency but also how to honor the community and keep their priorities at the top,” Pech says of Nelischer’s “Designing Livable Communities” and capstone classes.
Says Nelischer: “Eddie is a remarkable student. He was consistently engaged and committed to his studies and his career development. However, what impresses me most about Eddie is his positive attitude, energy, and curiosity.”
Every time Nelischer talked to Eddie, he seemed to be working on an exciting new project.
“In the first few weeks of my first class with Eddie,” Nelischer says, “he invited me to attend a community workshop that he was co-hosting with his colleagues on the future of the Los Angeles County General Hospital. It was great to see him working so hard on this landmark redevelopment project in the community where he grew up.
“Eddie’s interests and skills both within and beyond real estate development will serve him well, and I know he has a bright future ahead.”
A travel bug
Pech loves to travel.
He went on a solo trip to Hawaii last summer, and while playing tenor saxophone his first year with the USC Trojan Marching Band, he visited some of Austria and the Czech Republic.
Closer to home, he recently traveled to Alabama for the 2026 NCAA Beach Volleyball Championships in Alabama as student manager of the team (they lost to an unnamed rival university in Westwood).
Initially planning to pursue physical therapy or business administration at majors, Pech fell in love with real estate development after taking an introductory course.
“There are endless opportunities and possibilities that you can do with it,” says Pech, who switched to the major the second semester of his second year.
“The coolest part for me about real estate is the effect it can have on the local economy. It can have a spillover effect where it creates a boom in a local community. For example, you create one shopping center and you’re creating revenue for the city and you’re creating jobs, and it’s great to be part of that.”
