Council Approves Surgical Hospital

The Thousand Oaks City Council has approved a 27-bed, $20-million surgical hospital.

In addition to the surgical center, to be built on a four-acre site near Rolling Oaks and Los Padres drives, the council approved adjacent construction of a medical office building and a general office building and voted to extend Rolling Oaks Drive to Rancho Road.

The Thousand Oaks Surgical Hospital still needs a permit from state health officials before it can begin construction. It could be completed by spring 2002.

The 40,000-square-foot hospital will have six operating rooms. It will include upscale private rooms with TVs, refrigerators and sleeper sofas for guests.

A group of 40 doctors within the city will team up with Fresno-based FSC Health Inc. to build the facility. The property was purchased for $3.3 million from ABH Oaks LLC of Westlake Village.

ABH Oaks is building the two office buildings, which are separate from the surgical center.

The company owns the land where the Rolling Oaks extension to Rancho Road will be built, said Robert Haaland, co-partner of ABH Oaks. The city has had difficulty acquiring a piece of county property that would allow it to extend Rolling Oaks Drive, so ABH Oaks agreed to allow the city to use a route through its property for the road extension, said Larry Marquart, a senior city planner.

The city will build part of the road extension and ABH Oaks will build the rest, Haaland said.

When the extension is complete, the city will begin improving the Moorpark Road freeway interchange, a project that has been budgeted since 1998. Work could not begin because of the lack of road access to the freeway for residents near Rolling Oaks Drive.

Los Robles Regional Medical Center and Los Robles Surgicenter are the Conejo Valley’s only two facilities now equipped for major surgery.