The University of California Board of Regents agreed Thursday to partner with Los Angeles County to reopen Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital, the Willowbrook medical center that was closed in 2007 after failing a series of federal inspections.

Under the arrangement, which still needs final approval from the county Board of Supervisors, UC would provide the physician staff and develop a graduate medical training program, while the county will contribute financially.

The Board of Supervisors could consider the issue as early as its Dec. 1 meeting, according to James Bolden, spokesman for Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who has been spearheading efforts to reopen the facility.

The plan envisions reopening the hospital as a 120-bed facility in late 2012, housed in a new seismically compliant patient tower.

An emergency department, housed in a yet-to-be-built adjacent building, would be opened in 2013, followed by a newly constructed “ambulatory care center” to be opened in 2014.

County officials said the construction costs would be about $391 million, less than the cost of attempting to seismically retrofit the old MLK-Harbor Hospital building. County administrators said the cost of retrofitting the building could exceed $416 million.

UC would not be responsible for any of the construction or operating costs of the hospital.

The county estimated the new facility would cost about $168 million a year to run. The county was expected to pay about 30 percent of those costs, with the balance coming from federal and state reimbursements.

The hospital would be run by an independent nonprofit organization overseen by a seven-member board of directors — including two members chosen by the county, two by the university and three jointly by the county and university.

Once established, the board would hire a private operator to provide administrative services for the hospital.

Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center, a full-service teaching hospital built after the 1965 Watts riots, lost its accreditation due to a series of life-threatening mistakes made by employees. It was then renamed and merged with county-run Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in an attempt to save its federal funding.

But after the medical center failed a final “make-or-break” inspection by federal regulators, the hospital was closed in August 2007 and turned into a county-run walk-in clinic.