Kaiser Starts Medical Center Expansion

Kaiser Permanente has broken ground on an $87-million, 232,000-square-foot expansion at its Zion Road medical center.

The addition, to be completed in 1990, will include space for patient beds, operating rooms, labor and delivery areas, additional examination rooms and doctors’ offices, according to Kaiser administrator Ken Colling.

The project will include four- and five-story additions that will be connected to the original, 228-bed hospital that was built in 1975. That structure includes 228 patient rooms, five operating rooms and doctors’ offices. The addition will include about 80 patient rooms and seven operating rooms.

Kaiser is expanding because its membership in San Diego County has risen to 292,000 from 128,000 in 1975, according to spokesman Jim McBride. The health maintenance organization anticipates that its membership will grow to 400,000 by the mid-1990s, McBride said.

Kaiser, which recently completed a $7.5-million parking garage, also plans to build a new medical office building on Vandever Avenue, a few blocks south of the Zion Road medical center.

In addition to the Zion Road medical center, Kaiser operates a small hospital in El Cajon and outpatient medical offices in Bonita, Escondido, Carlsbad, Point Loma and San Diego. A new office building in El Cajon will be completed this year, McBride said.