Largest Medical Center in the Silicon Valley

First Half of Kaiser Project 'All But Completed'

Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente said a 520,000-sq.-ft. medical office building in Santa Clara will be substantially completed in the fall. It is the first major component of a 1.2 million-sq.-ft. medical center complex. The entire 37-acre project will be completed in 2007.

By Thomas York

The first half of Kaiser Permanente's $375 million, 1.2-million-sq.-ft. Santa Clara Medical Center is moving towards "substantial completion in November," said Michael Stoops, the health-care system's project manager. "It's all but completed at this juncture."

The second phase of construction now under way includes a 327-bed hospital that will double the number of beds in the existing facility on Kiely Boulevard (photo by Thomas York).

The work involves construction of a four-story, 520,000-sq.-ft. medical office building at the corner of Lawrence Expressway and Homestead Road. The entire project began in October 2001.

Stoops said the HVAC and electrical connections need to be made before the office building can be finished and then occupied, a step that hinges upon completion of a four-story, on-site utility plant.

San Francisco-based Anshen+Allen Architects is the designer for the entire project.
Stoops said the medical office building will be occupied in August 2005, while the diagnostic and other buildings will be completed in August 2006. The hospital wing is scheduled to open in 2007.

The 37-acre project is the second-largest hospital construction effort in the state and-the largest in Silicon Valley. It is the largest project in the Kaiser system, Stoops said.
Meanwhile, crews from the general contractor, Foster City-based Rudloph and Sletten, continue building the second half of the complex, a 327-bed hospital that will double the number of beds in the existing facility on Kiely Boulevard.

Colossal crane used
Hayward-based Marelich Mechanical brought in a 600-ton, 30-story-tall crane-the largest hydraulic crane west of the Mississippi River-to pick and place 23,000-lb. HVAC units to the roof of the hospital in December.

"Our use was part of the incentive for Bigge [Crane & Rigging Co.] to bring it out to the West Coast," said Chad Johnston, Marelich Mechanical's project manager on the Kaiser Santa Clara job. Johnston said the "picks" took four days to complete.
The German-made crane was dissembled into 43 pieces in New Jersey and then shipped to Oakland. The pieces were then trucked to the Santa Clara site and re-assembled over a one-week period. The crane took only four days to lift the HVAC equipment into position.

Despite its weight and size, Johnston said the crane was easy to maneuver, once it was brought to the site and assembled. "Except for the counterweights, you could drive it down the road," he added with a wide grin. "It went real smooth and there were no problems."

Crews began putting in place the first of 190-plus 23,000-lb. steel columns for the new four-story hospital in January. The columns were to be in place in May and welding completed in June.

The 37-acre project is the second-largest hospital construction effort in the state and the largest in the Silicon Valley (photo by Thomas York).

The steelwork includes the installation of Japanese-made unbonded braces to protect the hospital against major earthquakes.

Structural engineer Arup of California provided the idea to use the braces, which act something like automobile shock absorbers during a temblor.

Once the structural steel work is completed, work will then shift to the decking, exterior plaster and window wall systems and roofing.

Kaiser is also constructing two new concrete parking structures at the site; one a four-story structure designed to accommodate 1,470 cars. Overall, the two structures will provide parking for more than 3,200 automobiles.