No more scaling back UCSF’s hospital

AFTER MANY CHANGES, MISSION BAY PROJECT NOW COULD COST UP TO $1.3 BILLION

 

By Brian Busek

 

SAN FRANCISCO – University of California regents have changed course for the second time this year in their planning for a new UCSF hospital complex at Mission Bay, and the new direction appears to have the project back on track for  a large-scale development of as much as $1.3 billion.

In late September, the regents approved a $34 million budget for preliminary planning for a 289-bed  hospital at Mission Bay that would include women’s, children’s and cancer centers at a cost of $1 billion to $1.3 billion. The move essentially reverses a decision the board made earlier this year to seek a smaller scale project that would include only pediatric facilities.

Under the new plan, the Mission Bay hospital would include a 183-bed UCSF Children’s Hospital that would replace the existing Children’s Hospital on UCSF’s Parnassus Heights campus along with a 36-bed women’s facility and a 70-bed cancer center.

The regents also approved the purchase of a 14.5-acre parcel in Mission Bay as the site for the project.

According to some reports, an extension of the deadlines for meeting stricter seismic standards at California hospitals, approved by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in late September provided some of the impetus for the decision to return to the bigger plan. (For more information, please see next news item in “Inpatient Projects.”)

The extension moved the deadline for meeting the seismic standards back two years to Jan. 1, 2015.  The extra time gives UCSF an additional two years to raise funds for new facilities and relieves the need to make some upgrades on buildings that would be replaced by the Mission Bay project.

California hospitals

receive extension

for seismic standards

CALIFORNIA – California hospitals gained a bit of breathing space in their effort to upgrade facilities to meet the state’s strict new seismic standards when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger approved a two-year extension of the deadlines for the standards in late September.

The change makes it possible for providers to receive extensions until Jan. 1, 2015, for meeting the standards. Hospitals need to request extensions and show that they’ve made a good effort to rebuild and retrofit facilities in order to qualify for the later date.

The effort to meet the new standards has been a massive and costly undertaking for California providers.  An estimated $50 billion has been spent and budgeted by providers for projects that would bring them into compliance with the standards.

The new seismic standards were originally developed in the 1990s in the aftermath of the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

$500 million, 487-bed

replacement hospital

planned in Kentucky

OWENSBORO, Ky. – Owensboro Medical Health System recently announced that it plans to spend an estimated $500 million to build a 487-bed replacement hospital with about 1 million square feet. Construction is expected to take about five years in this growing town in the northwest part of Kentucky, about 100 miles west of Louisville.

As of recent weeks, Owensboro system officials had yet to choose a site for the future hospital, but they hope to have a location chosen by the end of the year. The current hospital has 347 beds and is located on 57 acres; hospital officials say the new campus will need at least 75 acres for adequate parking and room for future growth.

While the future hospital is slated to have multiple stories, the number of floors has yet to be determined. Officials are currently studying the designs of a number of hospitals being built across the country to find the best solution for the replacement hospital. While stacking the building is more efficient, system officials say, the facility would likely need to meet higher earthquake standards because it is located near the New Madrid Fault.

The driver of the project is growing demand, as officials say admissions are expected to increase 38 percent in the next decade, from 20,810 annually to 28,780. The hospital draws patients from 11 counties. The replacement facility would increase the number of operating rooms from 14 to 24 and the number of recovery rooms from 26 to 45, he said.

Hospital officials say the plan calls for retaining the current campus and using the 515,000 square foot facility for an ambulatory surgery center, rehabilitation unit, transitional care, a hospice, training, biotech services, information technology, and others.
San Fran General

plans $622 million

replacement hospital

SAN FRANCISCO – Maintaining a sense of its historical character while meeting strict new California seismic standards and the demands of contemporary medicine are the signature elements in San Francisco General Hospital’s newly released plans for a $622 million, 230-bed replacement hospital on its Potrero campus.

The plan is actually the newest edition in a string of proposals for a new facility to meet the state’s seismic standards. Previous plans have stumbled over problems with securing a site and concern about the loss of historic structures at the current facility.

The new plan incorporates two existing buildings that have drawn the attention of preservationists. The new structure would add a 386,000 square foot structure between the two buildings.

A ballot initiative would need to be approved by San Francisco voters for the project to move forward. The project is expected to go onto the ballot in 2008 or 2009 with a 2015 target date for completion.

Arizona provider wants

$500 million hospital

near research center

PHOENIX – Maricopa Medical Center of Phoenix is working on a plan to develop a $500 million replacement hospital in the same neighborhood as a planned biomedical research and training campus for the University of Arizona.

Maricopa officials are hoping to replace the aging 621-bed hospital and they consider the district where the University of Arizona is establishing a biomedical research center as an ideal location. The university is also expanding its college of medicine in the area.

Maricopa officials have not announced a timeline for the project.

Minnesota provider

Regions plans

$179M expansion

ST.  PAUL, Minn. – Regions Hospital of St. Paul recently announced plans for a $179 million, 385,000 square foot expansion.

Plans call for a 10-story structure that include patient floors, a surgical services area, an expanded emergency area and additional parking facilities. The provider seeks to complete the first phase of the project, which would add three patient floors, in 2009.

The project is aimed at attracting new clients in the growing eastern suburbs of St. Paul, which extend into western Wisconsin.

The Regions’ project is one of several on the drawing board in the downtown area of Minnesota’s capital. St. Joseph’s Hospital broke ground several months earlier on an $80 million renovation and expansion, in part for its heart and neuroscience programs. Also, United Hospital has started $75 million worth of projects planned for a new specialty center.

California provider

sings Folsom hospital

expansion prospectus

FOLSOM, Calif. – Catholic Healthcare West (CHW) officials say the start of construction on a new emergency pavilion at Mercy Folsom Hospital signals the start of a construction program that could total $225 million in projects in the next 15 years.

At recent groundbreaking ceremonies for the 25-bed, $27 million emergency facility, officials outlined a broad program of expansion plans for Mercy Folsom that could increase the hospital’s bed count from 85 to more than 300.

Long-range planning at Folsom includes a 21-bed medical surgery unit, a new patient wing with 90 beds and a patient tower with an additional 90 beds. 

In the near term, the 15,000 square foot surgery unit is targeted for completion by early 2010.  The earliest date projected for the patient wing is 2012 and the patient tower is seen as a possibility in 2020.

N.C. provider

stirs interest

with big plan

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – The details are sketchy but the implications are large in Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center’s recent filing with North Carolina state regulators for a $218.5 million project.

The provider is seeking a green light from the state to develop a 438,000 square foot facility that would include a new emergency department and intensive care units.

Limited details on the proposal were available at the press time, but if approved the project would be one of the largest in the local region.

Flagler hospital

acquires site for

288-bed project

ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla.  – Florida provider Flagler Hospital recently acquired a 60-acre site for a planned medical campus that would include a medical office building (MOB), ambulatory surgery center and acute care hospital.

Flagler has announced a three-stage plan for the project, beginning with a 34,000 square foot, $9 million MOB scheduled for completion in 2008.

An $11 million ambulatory surgery center would be added in the second phase, with that project being followed by a $95 million, 310,000 square foot acute-care hospital.

The hospital plan would require state CON approval, and Flagler officials indicated that it could be five years before they seek approval for the second-phase project.

Move for Denver VA

receives green light

from U.S. Senate

DENVER – The United States Senate recently approved a planning and preliminary construction budget for a $621 million hospital project that would move the Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center in Denver to a site in nearby Aurora.

The Senate unanimously approved a proposal for $98 million to acquire a site and develop a plan for the replacement hospital. The U.S. House of Representatives had previously approved the funding plan.

Doctors’ group set

to build 60-bed

hospital in Indiana

CLARKSVILLE, Ind. – A group of doctors was recently on the verge of gaining approval for its proposed $20 million, 60-bed private hospital in Clarksville, Ind., just outside of Louisville, Ky. The Clarksville Plan Commission was expected to vote in recent weeks on the proposed private hospital. Results of the vote were not known as this issue of Healthcare Real Estate Insights^™ went to press.

The hospital was first proposed three years ago in nearby New Albany, Ind., when it was proposed as a 40-bed facility focusing primarily on cardiac care. But local not-for-profit hospitals protested and Floyd and Clark counties passed moratoriums on new hospital construction. But when a federal judge overturned the moratoriums earlier this year, the physicians’ group decided to build a larger hospital and offer a total of 14 medical specialties. They also chose to build in Clarksville, where they said they felt welcome than in New Albany.

Plans now call for two emergency beds in a facility that would have 25 doctors and a total of 115 employees. Construction is expected to begin late in 2006 and take about 16 months to complete.

For the Record

Adventist Medical Center of Portland, Ore., plans to break ground this fall on a $104 million, 181,000 square foot expansion project at its Southeast Portland campus. The project would include expanded emergency department services, a new center for cardiovascular services and new outpatient surgery suites with a 2008 target date for completion… Kettering Medical Center of Dayton, Ohio, has plans for a new $48 million heart hospital. The plans received a boost recently with a $5.5 million gift from Dr. Benjamin Schuster and his wife, Marian. Groundbreaking for the project is slated for 2007… St. Francis Memorial Hospital of San Francisco recently completed a $12.6 million expansion and renovation of its emergency department… Johns Hopkins in Baltimore recently announced construction plans for a new $88 million eye institute that would include surgery and research facilities. The target date for completion is 2009…. The board of directors for the Indiana Regional Medical Center expects in December to consider a proposal for a $100 million, 129,000 square foot expansion project at its main campus…. Baylor Medical Center of Frisco, Texas, recently announced it has $77 million in expansion projects either under construction or in the pipeline… Allina Hospitals and Clinics of Minneapolis has selected Brookfield, Wis.-based Hammes Co. as facility planner and is searching for an architect for a new $46 million hospital in Owatonna, Minn. The target date for completion is 2009… Illinois provider Provena Health lost the latest round in its fight for a property tax exemption when it received an unfavorable ruling from the director of the Illinois Department of Revenue. The provider plans to appeal the ruling… In California, the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors recently approved a plan to remove specialty services from the Martin Luther King-Drew Medical Center and turn over management of the facility to Harbor-University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center. The hospital would retain emergency services and 100 inpatient beds. Reform plans for the hospital were prompted by a critical inspection that threatened about $200 million in federal funding for the facility… Some hospitals in the state of New York will be eyed as candidates for closure as part of a recent agreement between state and federal officials. The agreement gives the state a five-year Medicaid waiver and provides $1.5 billion to restructure healthcare. The plan calls for reform efforts that are expected to include consolidation and restructuring of healthcare in the state… In Ohio, the state attorney general has asked the courts to settle a dispute between the six-hospital Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati and one of its members, Christ Hospital of Cincinnati. Christ Hospital is seeking approval for a plan to leave the system… Samaritan Hospital of Troy, N.Y., has announced plans for a new $20 million, 35,000 square foot cancer treatment center. Groundbreaking is scheduled for 2007 with completion targeted for 2009… Grady Memorial Hospital of Columbus, Ohio, is involved in a road construction project in Delaware County, Ohio, that would provide access to site where the provider has long-term plans for a medical campus that would include medical offices, an outpatient facility and perhaps a full-service hospital. The project is expected to being in 2007. q