Hospital construction keeps chugging along, even as much of Orange County’s building has slowed down or stalled altogether.
An aging population, new medical technology and the state’s earthquake compliance law are keeping hospital building above the bumps that have hit the larger economy and the housing and office markets in particular, according to construction officials.
“The hospital market is going to go strong for many years, from all accounts,” said Steve Mynsberge, executive vice president of healthcare services in the Newport Beach office of McCarthy Building Cos., a St. Louis builder that is doing hospital and other healthcare projects here.
Hospital construction is “much more complex” and more tightly governed by regulators, such as California’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, Mynsberge said, limiting the number of companies that can benefit from the boom.
“The contractors that do that work,I’m talking really about the subcontractors, the specialty trades,you don’t see (them) getting into that if they don’t have some significant experience at that work, because it’s very, very difficult,” Mynsberge said.
California’s seismic safety law, which requires major acute-care hospitals to be standing 72 hours after a major earthquake, makes the designs of new hospitals and building retrofits even more complex.
Bringing hospitals up to code by the 2015 extended deadline is one of the key drivers in the building boom.
The others are population growth and changes in healthcare.
Here’s a look at hospital projects under way or recently completed:
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UCI Medical Center, Orange
UCI Medical Center’s $427 million New University Hospital is on budget, about 85% done and construction is running ahead of schedule, said David Bailey, vice chancellor for health affairs for the University of California, Irvine, which runs the hospital.
“Originally, we were hoping to open in January 2009. Now it appears it will be October ’08,it could even be advanced beyond that,” said Bailey, who came to UC Irvine in March. The hospital expects to start seeing patients by early 2009.
New University Hospital has 482,428 square feet, 236 beds and 15 operating rooms. The hospital’s cost includes $79 million worth of equipment.
Hensel Phelps Construction Co. is building the hospital, the largest of the expansions under way in the county.
Funding for New University Hospital comes from several sources. The majority,$235 million,comes from state bond money allocated to UCI to get its hospital in line with the state’s earthquake law.
And there could be more building coming. UCI is planning to ask the UC Board of Regents in January to build a $242 million addition that would bring 69 more beds.
St. Joseph Hospital, Orange
Orange-based St. Joseph Health System opened its $203 million patient care center, which was built by McCarthy, about six weeks ago.
The center, which has 150 beds and 248,000 square feet of space, was designed with the area’s Hispanic population in mind. Hispanics make up 50% to 55% of patients.
St. Joseph’s new center started out as a way for it to meet the earthquake law but evolved beyond that, said Chuck Coryell, the hospital’s director of construction.
St. Joseph’s older building, which went up in the 1960s, is set to be retrofitted and renovated. About 60% of the hospital’s existing 450,000-square-foot campus doesn’t meet earthquake requirements, Chief Executive Larry Ainsworth said.
St. Joseph also is building a 200,000-square-foot cancer treatment center next to its hospital alongside the Garden Grove (22) Freeway. It’s set to be a seven-story, 131,000-square-foot building for cancer specialists.
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Hoag Memorial, Newport Beach
Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian continues to expand after finishing the $200 million Sue and Bill Gross Women’s Pavilion two years ago.
The women’s center ushered in a 10-year expansion planned for Hoag. Hoag’s projects include reconstructing and renovating its emergency department, earthquake retrofitting and improving its west tower.
Down the road, the hospital plans to expand its cancer center and add a new critical care tower.
St. Jude, Fullerton
St. Jude Medical Center, part of St. Joseph, is building a $122 million, five-story patient tower with an emergency department, maternity services, critical care unit and cardiac and vascular laboratories.
When the tower is completed next year, it will increase St. Jude’s bed capacity to more than 400, up from 359 now.
The hospital is undergoing a $1.6 billion makeover to address the earthquake law and a growing patient population.
Besides the tower, St. Jude also plans a $110 million expansion of its Medical Plaza, including a four-story medical office building and a nine-level parking structure.
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Kaiser Permanente, Irvine
Kaiser Permanente’s $350 million hospital complex in Irvine off the San Diego (I-405) Freeway is nearly ready to take patients.
The Oakland-based health system, which operates OC’s largest health maintenance organization, anticipates opening its facility in May.
Kaiser’s new hospital will open with 150 beds and will have room for 100 more.
The complex has two patient care towers on a 40-acre parcel of land near Sand Canyon Avenue and Alton Parkway.
Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. built it.
Early next year, Kaiser plans to replace its aging 200-bed Anaheim hospital with a 250-bed, $326 million facility that’s scheduled to finish around 2012.
Mission Hospital, Mission Viejo
Mission Hospital, also part of St. Joseph, is building a four-story patient tower at an estimated $160 million to $165 million.
McCarthy is the builder.
Construction is set to start within the month, according to McCarthy’s Mynsberge, with a completion date of fall 2009.
Mission’s tower is expected to be operational in early 2010. It’s set to include 64 private rooms, imaging services, intensive care beds, a neuroscience unit, medical-surgical beds and a chapel.
Mission was built about a decade ago following current earthquake standards.
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Orange Coast, Fountain Valley
Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center is another OC hospital that isn’t building because of earthquake issues. Instead, Orange Coast, one of three local hospitals owned by Long Beach-based Memorial Health Systems, is putting up its $48 million, six-story building for more outpatient services, said Marcia Manker, its chief executive, earlier this year.
Summit Smith Healthcare Facilities, a designer and builder from Milwaukee, is developing Orange Coast’s 162,500-square-foot outpatient center. The not-for-profit hospital is paying for the project through internal funds and fundraising, Manker said.
