City of Hope’s plans for building a comprehensive cancer center at Irvine’s Great Park Neighborhoods took a big step forward Thursday, after it completed the acquisition of property at the city’s FivePoint Gateway office campus.
City of Hope, a research and treatment center for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases with its main campus in Duarte, bought a 190,000 square foot, four-story building at the Irvine site, and 11 acres of adjacent land.
A deal had been in the works for over a year. The final price comes out to $108 million, according to Irvine’s FivePoint Holdings LLC, the master developer of the Great Park Neighborhoods.
It’s the largest reported real estate deal completed in Orange County this year.
City of Hope expects to ultimately invest about $1 billion into the Irvine campus, which will include a comprehensive cancer center at the existing building it bought, as well as a future acute care cancer hospital and other facilities.
The cancer center plans “to offer diagnostic imaging and screenings, precision medicine and early detection, medical oncology, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgical oncology and ambulatory surgery,” according to a statement. It will also hold a clinical research center.
The adjacent hospital, yet to be built, will be “Orange County’s only specialty cancer hospital focused exclusively on treating and curing cancer.”
The campus is expected to anchor a regional hub for wellness in Irvine, with “blue-chip physician groups, wellness specialists and related research and innovation activities,” the statement said.
FivePoint Chairman and CEO Emile Haddad said it’s vital “to act boldly to make wellness and health care the foundation of every sustainable community of the future.”
“We are ‘all in’ for the region, fulfilling a promise that will deliver pioneering research and lifesaving treatment,” said Annette Walker, President, City of Hope Orange County.
Haddad and Walker are part of the annual OC 50 feature in the May 25 print edition of the Business Journal, which highlights area executives making a difference in the community during the pandemic.