The bright red and blue exterior of Children’s Hospital of Orange County’s nearly completed Southwest Tower is becoming more visible from the 22 Freeway.
The nine-story, 330,000-square-foot facility, which broke ground in 2023, will house a variety of pediatric outpatient services.
CHOC is investing $300 million to construct the tower. It’s the largest project for CHOC since 2013, when the 425,000-square-foot Bill Holmes Tower opened on its main campus in Orange.
Once completed, CHOC’s new tower will have a comprehensive outpatient imaging center, a dedicated research institute floor, oncology infusion services, multiple specialty clinics and a host of patient and family amenities.
Consolidating these services under one roof will make a more convenient experience for children and their families, officials said. “By providing outpatient care for services like chemotherapy, infusions and other procedures, we hope our patients can recover faster and avoid overnight hospital stays whenever possible,” CHOC Chief Executive and President Kimberly Chavalas Cripe told the Business Journal.
The first phase of the Southwest Tower will be completed in March and open to patients in June.
Shifting to Behavioral Health and Hospital-based Clinics
Two new MRIs and other equipment will be on the first floor of the tower with a roughly 11,000-square-feet imaging center on the fourth floor.
Pediatric research and clinical trials will take place in the research institute on the ninth floor. It’ll have exam rooms for patients and a dedicated area for children with movement disorders to use ceiling-mounted harnesses to help improve their mobility.
McCarthy Building Cos., which has a local office in Newport Beach, is the general contractor of the project. Also working on the tower is Jacobs Construction as the project management partner and CannonDesign as the architecture and design firm. All three previously worked together with CHOC on the Bill Holmes Tower.
About 200,000 of the total 330,000 square feet has been built out with remaining space to expand in the future, according to Paul Clary, vice president of operations at McCarthy.
Certain aspects of the tower are catered toward child patients, such as each floor having its own different color theme.
Clary’s favorite design detail is a large glass viewing area in the research institute, allowing patients in the lobby to see what’s happening inside.
“I think there’s little touches like that with all the colorful attributes that are added throughout the building to make it a really special place,” Clary told the Business Journal.
McCarthy had about 200 people working on the project.
It’s wrapping up other major healthcare construction projects in Orange County, including Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian’s $1.2 billion expansion of its Irvine campus.
The first phase of the expansion is expected to be complete by July 2026.
Clary said that the company has seen a shift in healthcare projects toward behavioral health and hospital-based clinics.
“It feels like a lot of providers in the area are evaluating what their next big work is going to look like,” he said.
Another factor affecting business is the 2030 seismic compliance requirements, Clary said. By Jan. 1, 2030, all California hospitals will have to comply with the new standards.
Newly-Formed Parent Company
CHOC, which merged with Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego last month, has a total addressable market of two million children across four counties.
The merger formed a new entity called Rady Children’s Health, becoming the parent company of both hospitals.
Chavalas Cripe, who has served as the CEO and president of CHOC since 1997, and Patrick Frias, who was appointed president and CEO of Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego in 2018, will be co-CEOs of Rady Children’s Health.
The combined entity is estimated to generate $3 billion in annual revenue.
CHOC has not changed its name at this time.
It’s still deciding on whether signage on new buildings will display CHOC or Rady Children’s Health and will “share details as soon as they are available.”
Chavalas Cripe said that the team at CHOC has embraced the merger “with a great deal of enthusiasm.”
“We’ve seen a lot of collaboration and a shared sese of purpose, which has been really energizing,” she said.
The merger will allow CHOC to expand its research efforts, improve patient outcomes and bring more specialized care to families, according to Chavalas Cripe.
CHOC is Orange County’s fourth-largest hospital with $1.1 billion in patient revenue for the year ended Sept. 30, 2024. The organization has 334 licensed beds in Orange County, and 218,542 annual outpatient visits.
In addition to the merger, Chavalas Cripe said that CHOC is progressing on its master plan which maps out the hospital’s next 10 years.
Ahead of the Southwest Tower, CHOC is opening a 24-bed cardiovascular intensive care unit and a 28-bed neuroscience unit in the Bill Holmes Tower to meet increased demand for these services.
