Last week, El Camino Hospital broke ground on an earthquake-safe hospital building, a project that has taken five years to plan and is expected to take three more to complete.
“We’ve been waiting for this day for a long, long time and we’re grateful it has finally arrived,” said Edward Bough, the president of El Camino Hospital’s board of directors, at last Thursday’s groundbreaking ceremony.
Next week, El Camino will demolish the old Oak Pavilion and, over the next four weeks, construction workers will dig a “very large hole in the ground,” said Ken King, vice president of facilities services for El Camino.
This 25-foot-deep hole will be filled with a rigid foundation — one that is four times as thick as the current hospital’s foundation — designed to withstand earthquakes and comply with state standards for seismic safety.
In 1994, a new law required all hospitals to meet stricter earthquake standards by 2008, with the possibility of an extension until 2013. By July 1, 2009, El Camino plans to be settled into the new structure and to begin demolishing the current hospital, according to King.
Hospitals are expected to be able to remain functional in the event of an earthquake and continue to care for and accept patients.
“It’s going to be a complex project to build. We’re going to have a real challenge on our hands getting it to work out,” King said.
By 2009, the new 450,000-square-foot hospital on Grant Road will stand five stories high and contain 300 licensed beds, 16 operating rooms and a conference room that seats up to 200 people.
The June 8 groundbreaking was long awaited, after six months of delays caused by a lawsuit challenging El Camino’s successful $148 million bond measure to finance the project. El Camino recently settled with Saratoga resident and landlord Aaron Katz for $200,000, after Katz had sued the hospital for not being able to vote in an election in a district where he owned property and would face taxes from the bond.
Hospital officials have estimated that the delay cost El Camino about $2 million per month, but the major culprit of the increased budget — which jumped from $339 million to $480 million — is the escalating cost of construction on hospital projects throughout the state.
Due to the number of projects, a higher demand has been put on the small number of contractors who are equipped to take on a complex hospital project, according to a January report from the California Hospital Association.
Prior to breaking ground on the new hospital, El Camino had completed several other projects, such as a new parking structure, a medical office building and a dialysis center.
E-mail Molly Tanenbaum at mtanenbaum@mv-voice.com
