A new women’s medical center is going up in Orange, with a million dollars in seed money from the Knott family.
The Cordelia Knott Wellness Center is set to occupy the first floor of a 40,000-square-foot medical building going up in Orange. Virginia Knott, the daughter of Walter and Cordelia Knott, founders of Knott’s Berry Farm, made the donation.
The wellness center is set to house the Breast Care Center of Orange County and the Oncology Center of Orange County, both of which plan to relocate next year from their current homes near St. Joseph Hospital-Orange. The Foundation for Advancements in Breast Care, the nonprofit affiliate of the two centers, is raising funds for the Knott center.
Established in 1989 with $2,500, The Foundation for Advancements in Breast Care has 150 volunteers and an endowment of $1.5 million. Its goal is to raise $5 million, according to Jean Sedbrook, the group’s director.
“We would like to raise that money within in the next 12 months,” she said.
The goal of the Knott center is to provide multiple services for cancer patients in one place, she said.
“In one 20,000-square-foot location, not only will we have mammography and breast surgeons, but also an oncology staff and a licensed, clinical social worker to assist with the psychological aspects of cancer,” said Sedbrook, a former breast cancer patient. “It’s difficult, when being treated, to have to go all over Orange County.”
The Knott center is set to be part of a two-building, 80,000-square-foot Main Street Medical Center under construction at the corner of South Main Street and W. Palmyra Ave. in the heart of the Orange medical district.
As reported by the Business Journal last week, the project is located on 3.3 acres on the former Ford of Orange site. The new $15 million medical complex is down the street from St. Joseph’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Orange County.
“We wanted to develop a medical campus in the corridor between St. Joseph’s and UCI,” said developer David Valentine, principal of Valentine Realty Co., a family-run real estate firm that’s been in business in OC since 1945.
Valentine said the idea of developing an independent medical center for medical professionals occurred to him about four years ago. The move is paying off, he said, as demand has been strong for space at the office building project. Plans call for an ambulatory surgical center on the premises and an adjacent four-story parking structure.
“It’s nearly 90% leased and we’re just coming out of the ground,” Valentine said. “The Breast Care Center of Orange County will occupy the first floor of one building and a group of 13 orthopedic surgeons will occupy 100% of the other building.”
A mixture of medical professionals is taking space in the second floor of the Knott center, leaving only about 15,000 square feet vacant, he said.
“We have interest coming from medical professionals and medically related retail such as optometrists,” said Laura Leonard, vice president with Costa Mesa-based Independent Development Co., who is developing the project along with Valentine Realty. n
