Saint John’s Health Center has been working on reconstructing its campus since it was damaged in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. In August, it is set to open its latest completed facility, the new 285,000-square-foot, four-story Howard Keck Center.
The new center’s facilities include an Emergency Room, an imaging center that houses a 64-slice Cat Scanner (CT), a 3.0 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), birthing suites, and an atrium.
Saint John’s old Emergency Room’s entrance was on Santa Monica Boulevard, but the new entrance will be on Arizona Avenue and 22nd Street, in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Neighbors of the facility have been concerned about the ambulances’ routes to the Emergency Room because of siren noise.
The Mirror attempted to aquire information about the ambulances routes to the facility from the hospital’s spokesperson, Gregory Harrison. In an e-mail he stated, “The fire department and City are currently in discussion over several traffic-related details, including the route that emergency vehicles would take to the ER.”
The Mirror was unable to reach the City for comment on the ambulance routes by press time.
The hospital tower currently housing the old hospital’s South Wing is scheduled to begin demolition in the fall of 2009. Its site will then be turned into a park and drop off area.
Other access to the Keck Center will be available after the South Wing is demolished. Until then a temporary entrance will be available.
Saint John’s took possession of the new building earlier this month and are installing equipment, training staff, and coordinating patient transfers. These processes are expected to take two months.
In 2005 the hospital opened its first new building, the Chan Soon-Shiong Center for Life Sciences. The total construction cost for replacing the hospital is $499 million.
Harrison also told the Mirror “no definite plans” have been made by the hospital for the properties it owns south of Santa Monica Boulevard.
They are waiting to see the City’s update of its LUCE (Land Use and Circulation Element) Plan.
Saint John’s new campus will be one of the only hospitals in the region to be able to continue operations and mitigate damage after a major seismic event because the campus will include a state-of-the-art isolation system that includes base-isolators, and a comprehensive water, sewage and power infrastructure.
Tours of the new building will be open to the public on the afternoon of July 29. For more information please call 310.829.5511.
