Laguna Hills : 2 Hospital Projects Get Planners’ Green Light

Plans for an $18-million Women’s Health Center and a $17-million office building at Saddleback Community Hospital were unanimously approved by the Orange County Planning Commission on Monday.

Construction of the 80,000-square-foot Women’s Center, to be the first of its kind in Orange County, is expected to begin in May, 1986, and be completed late in 1987, said Lyle Melton, assistant administrator of the Laguna Hills hospital. The building will house services--from obstetrics to cosmetic surgery--now in the nearby Saddleback Medical Center.

The commission also approved construction of a 134,000-square-foot building for administrative and medical offices, outpatient radiology facilities and a pharmacy. Melton said the hospital plans to break ground next December and have the work completed in the spring of 1987.

The hospital also plans to begin construction next month of a $2.1-million outpatient surgery and cancer treatment center. Melton said the two-story, 8,400-square-foot structure, approved by the Planning Commission last December, could be finished by the end of this year. The outpatient center would serve patients having routine “one-day” operations.

The Planning Commission continued until May 8 a request by the Laguna Niguel-based Stein-Brief Group for approval to build 279 single-family houses off Coast Highway in Laguna Niguel.

A spokesman for the developer said the single-family, attached houses would be priced from $165,000 to $200,000 each. He said that if the planners give their approval at the next meeting, construction could begin by the end of summer.