The completed project, a development of Loma Linda University Medical Center, is an 85,000-square-foot off-campus medical plaza that consolidates four independent healthcare organizations and more than dozen different healthcare services in two separate buildings. The project that has reached a milestone is Kaiser Permanente's Fontana Replacement Hospital, where officials recently marked its progress with a beam signing ceremony and expect the final steel beam to be raised into place within the next several weeks.

The Loma Linda Medical Center project was developed by for the university by Chicago-based Lillibridge. The new three-level, project is called Highland Springs Medical Plaza and was "fraught with extraordinary challenges" from a development standpoint, according to Lillibridge. The Chicago-based developer explains that, when executives of Loma Linda University Medical Center decided to build two new facilities about 15 miles away, the project "marked the first significant foray beyond the university's main campus." The new facilities would serve residents of Beaumont as well as the surrounding communities of Cherry Valley, Banning, Cabazon, Calimesa, Yucaipa and Oak Glen.

Lillibridge explains that the strategy was to better serve California's Inland Empire area, attracting new patients while reducing the need for current patients to travel to the main campus in Loma Linda. The medical plaza,which had a projected price tag of about $42 million, was also a collaboration involving the medical center, Faculty Practice Plan of Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Redlands Community Hospital and Beaver Medical Group. That made it the Loma Linda Medical Center's first major partnership with other healthcare providers.

The resulting Highland Springs Medical Plaza features a three-story, 68,300-square-foot medical office linked to a one-story, 16,900-square-foot surgery center. Services include outpatient surgery, imaging, urgent care, radiation oncology, medical oncology, physical therapy, pediatrics, laboratory, urology, neurology, general surgery, orthopedics, physical medicine and rehabilitation. The complex was designed by Lillibridge in collaboration with healthcare architect Reese Associates Inc., with general contractor Diffenbaugh of Riverside, CA.

In Fontana, Kaiser Permanente officials says that in the coming months, the next phases of construction of the new hospital will include the pouring of the concrete floors on all levels and then internal wall framing. Next will be the rough mechanical work, which includes electrical, plumbing and heating and air conditioning installations. At the same time, work will begin on the roof, exterior and facade of the building.

Scheduled to open in 2013, the new Fontana replacement hospital will feature seven stories, 314 beds, and 482,078 square feet of medical facilities. The new hospital will replace the existing hospital on the medical center's campus and meet the new, more rigorous earthquake safety standards established by the state of California.

The Fontana hospital is part of a capital expenditures plan for Kaiser Permanente's San Bernardino County members. The plan also includes construction of the 224-bed Kaiser Permanente Ontario Vineyard Medical Center Hospital, on schedule to open in 2011, and new medical office buildings in Upland and Redlands, which both opened in fall 2008. McCarthy Building of Newport Beach is the general contractor for the Fontana Replacement Hospital project.