A 24-hour pet emergency hospital has opened inside the Beverly Connection shopping center in Beverly Grove, bringing round-the-clock veterinary care to a stretch of La Cienega Boulevard that now sits directly across from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's newly acquired retail campus. The 5,000-square-foot facility, run by Veterinary Emergency Group, includes traditional exam and surgery rooms, radiology and ultrasound equipment, and intensive care unit oxygen cages for life support.
The new hospital marks VEG's fifth location in Los Angeles County, joining existing sites in Santa Monica, Manhattan Beach, Torrance, and Santa Clarita, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. The Santa Monica location, the company's first in the county, opened in 2023. Veterinary Emergency Group, based in White Plains, New York, was founded in 2014 by David Bessler and David Glattstein and now operates more than 130 hospital locations across roughly three dozen states and Ontario.
An Open-Floorplan Model Built to Ease Owner Anxiety
Unlike conventional veterinary practices that keep owners in waiting rooms, VEG uses an open floorplan that lets pet owners stay with their animals throughout diagnostics, surgical procedures, and overnight stays. Bessler said VEG ER for Pets provides families and pets with the best emergency veterinary experience, per the report from the Business Journal. The design, credited to Bessler and Glattstein, is intended to alleviate the separation anxiety that pet owners often feel when animals are whisked behind closed doors for treatment.
The model comes with amenities that read more like a hospitality touch than a hospital protocol: Wi-Fi, refreshments, and sleeping materials for visitors who wind up spending the night, according to VEG's own description of its locations. The approach has become a hallmark as the company has expanded rapidly, having raised $100 million in financing in 2021 that pushed its total equity raised since inception to roughly $150 million, per Business Wire's reporting at the time. By 2024, private equity investment had pushed VEG's valuation past $2.5 billion, according to Business Model Canvas Research.
A Prime Spot Across From Cedars-Sinai's New Purchase
The timing places VEG's newest hospital in an unusually charged piece of Westside real estate. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center purchased the 340,000-square-foot Beverly Connection shopping center at 100 N. La Cienega Blvd. for $269.9 million — about $790 per square foot — in March, buying the property from Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., as Hoodline previously reported. The complex is anchored by national retailers including Target, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Ross, Nordstrom Rack, and a 20,000-square-foot Bloomingdale's Outlet that signed its lease in early 2025, according to Commercial Observer.
Before Cedars-Sinai stepped in, the mall had faced real financial strain. Its $210 million commercial mortgage loan was sent to special servicing in 2020, and the property's appraisal had dropped to $193 million by late 2024 amid pandemic-era declines in retail traffic, The Real Deal reported. Ashkenazy had originally purchased the complex in 2014 for $260 million.
Competing With a Mars-Owned Giant
VEG's expansion puts it in direct competition with VCA Inc., formerly known as Veterinary Care of America, which operates more than a dozen veterinary hospital locations across Western Los Angeles County. VCA was acquired by conglomerate Mars, Inc. in 2017 in a $9.1 billion transaction, according to Federal Trade Commission records, placing it alongside Banfield Pet Hospital and BluePearl under the Mars Veterinary Health umbrella.
That competition is unfolding against a backdrop of nationwide strain on veterinary staffing. The U.S. veterinary industry faces ongoing workforce shortages, with studies showing high vacancy rates in emergency and specialty care, where open specialist positions in private practice can outnumber available residency graduates by as much as 4 to 1, per Roo.vet. The shortage has been linked to longer wait times and higher emergency care costs nationally.
Financial Help for Struggling Pet Owners
VEG also runs a charitable program called VEG Cares, operated in partnership with the nonprofit Veterinary Care Foundation, which directs 100% of donated funds toward emergency medical treatment for pets whose owners face severe financial hardship. The program has funded emergency care for more than 2,000 animals nationwide since 2019. It's the same charitable arm that helped cover treatment for a dog rescued by firefighters, as Hoodline reported in an earlier eight-dog rescue story.
Beyond its five Los Angeles County locations, VEG's California footprint now includes 24/7 emergency clinics in San Jose, Pleasant Hill, San Ramon, Encinitas, Costa Mesa, Larkspur, and Palm Desert. As the company continues opening new hospitals across the state, the Beverly Grove location gives Westside pet owners another round-the-clock option in a market still shaped by industry-wide staffing pressure and rising emergency costs.
