Much of Orange County’s building has either slowed or stalled in the wake of the sputtering economy. But hospital construction,spurred partly by California’s earthquake safety law that must be complied with by 2013,continues to hum along.
State law requires all major acute-care hospitals to be able to remain standing and operational in case a major earthquake hits. The cost to comply with the law for California hospitals has been estimated at well into the billions.
And certain hospital operators have cited dealing with earthquake safety costs as something that is leading them to sell facilities, including Huntington Beach-based Memorial Health Services’ so-far unsuccessful quest to sell Anaheim Memorial Medical Center.
Several OC hospitals are in varying stages of their projects.
n Construction is done on the University of California, Irvine’s $427 million New University Hospital, said John Murray, a hospital spokesman.
Regulators granted an occupancy permit to UC Irvine about two weeks ago, Murray said. Officials plan to spend the next few months buying equipment and obtaining licenses; the hospital is set to take its first patients in February, Murray said.
New University Hospital has 482,428 square feet, 236 beds and 15 operating rooms. The hospital’s total cost includes $79 million worth of equipment.
Hensel Phelps Construction Co. built New University Hospital, which is one of the largest of the expansions under way in OC.
n In Fullerton, St. Jude Medical Center, one of three local facilities owned by Orange-based Catholic hospital operator St. Joseph Health System, is undergoing a $1 billion-plus makeover. That project includes a $126 million tower that will house heart catheterization labs, an emergency room, an intensive care unit, labor and delivery and postpartum services.
St. Jude is planning to take its first patients in the tower early next year, Chief Executive Lee Penrose said in an earlier interview.
Besides the new tower, St. Jude also has chosen to retrofit its existing complex to the standards, rather than starting over with a new primary patient tower because of space constraints.
“The only alternative would have been to start over from scratch with a brand-new piece of land,” Penrose said. “The thought of picking up St. Jude and moving it to another location would have been pretty difficult to fathom.”
n St. Jude sister facility Mission Hospital is building a 95,000-square-foot, four-story patient tower at an estimated $160 million to $165 million that’s expected to take patients in fall 2009. The Newport Beach office of McCarthy Building Cos., a St. Louis builder that’s done several hospital and healthcare projects here in recent years, is building Mission’s tower.
n At Orange Coast Memorial Center in Fountain Valley, earthquake issues aren’t playing a part in building projects. Orange Coast, which is owned by Long Beach’s Memorial Health Systems, is putting up its $48 million, six-story building to provide more outpatient services. Summit Smith Healthcare Facilities, a Milwaukee designer and builder that is part of C.D. Smith Construction Inc., is developing Orange Coast’s outpatient center.
