Owner of the Year: Kaiser Permanente

Photo by Paul Napolitano

Health care continued to be one of the fastest growing segments in the construction industry during the past year in California. Propelled by more stringent seismic code requirements mandated by SB 1953, construction of medical centers gained even more steam from the torrid pace set in 2004.

Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente easily had more construction in place in 2005 in California than any other single health care owner as it continued construction on several massive hospital replacement center projects and broke ground on others throughout the state.

Northern California

Kaiser, the largest health care provider in the United States, expects to open a cancer treatment center early next year in Santa Clara as part of a 1.2-million-sq.-ft., $375-million complex, where a 520,000-sq.-ft. medical office building opened in August and an inpatient, hospital and emergency facility is scheduled to open in mid-2007. Anshen + Allen Architects of San Francisco is the architect and Redwood City-based Rudolph & Sletten is the general contractor.

In Antioch, Kaiser Permanente broke ground on a 637,000-sq.-ft., 150-bed medical center. The $240-million project is scheduled to open in November 2007. Sacramento-based Harbison-Mahony-Higgins Builders Inc. is the general contractor on the project, which was designed by the joint venture Chong Partners Architecture/SmithGroup.

Kaiser Permanente recently embarked on hospital replacement and expansion projects in Vallejo and Vacaville, both designed by San Francisco-based Chong Partners Architecture. The $300-million Vacaville Medical Center expansion project broke ground in June. In addition to a new 340,000-sq.-ft. hospital, the project will include a medical office building situated next to existing facilities off Vaca Valley Parkway. Kaiser's Vacaville medical offices opened in 1996 and plans for a major hospital to go on the site are underway. Rudolph and Sletten is the general contractor. Completion date is scheduled for 2009.

The Vallejo Medical Center project will replace the existing hospital at 975 Sereno Drive with a new 460,000-sq.-ft. facility designed by Chong to meet the latest seismic safety standards. Scheduled to open in 2008, the facility will include a 188-bed in-patient hospital tower that features state-of-the-art technologies. It will house approximately 75 percent of all inpatient services, including diagnostic imaging, women's services and a surgery center.

In August, Kaiser Permanente dedicated its first Radiation Oncology Center in Placer County. G.L. Bruno Associates served as the general contractor on the $16.6-million project and the architect was Anthony C. Pings Associates; both firms are based in Fresno.

Southern California

The building boom continues in Southern California, where Kaiser has three major projects underway.

On the west side of Los Angeles, an $80-million wing is scheduled to open in September. The 200,000-sq.-ft., five-story tower, designed by Ontario-based HMC Architects and being built by the Newport Beach office of McCarthy Building Cos. Inc., will replace one of the existing hospital buildings that was erected in 1974.

Work continues on a multi-phase 900,000-sq.-ft. medical center on a 65-acre-site in Downey. The centerpiece of the project is a 567,000-sq.-ft., six-story patient tower that is scheduled to be completed in late-2008. Two medical office buildings also are part of the master plan. One 300,000-sq.-ft. MOB is nearing completion. The other 300,000-sq.-ft. MOB will be built in a subsequent phase.

And in the Panorama City area of Los Angeles, construction continues on a $150-million, 218-bed replacement hospital. The 404,000-sq.-ft., six-story facility is scheduled to open in the summer of 2007.

-By Paul Napolitano

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