Kaiser Opens New Oakland Hospital

Kaiser Permanente has opened up its state-of-the art new hospital and medical offices in Oakland, a project that came with a hefty total pricetag of $1.3 billion. 

The 349-bed, 950,000 square-foot facility, which opened last week, includes wi-fi and family beds in all patient rooms, a 52-bay emergency room, as well as medical offices for more than 100 physicians that include outpatient procedure rooms. It also has a 37-bed children's hospital within the larger facility.

“This new building culminates a years-long capital program to keep our hospitals and medical offices state of the art,” said Gregory A. Adams, group president and regional president of Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Health Plan, Inc., in Northern California. 

The Oakland-based Kaiser has been in the midst of decade-long building boom that has included hospitals, medical offices and other structures.

Hospital construction is California is among the costliest in the United States, primarily due to strict building guidelines for seismic compliance. The total cost of the Oakland project ran about $3.7 million per bed, compared to about $2 million a bed to build a hospital about a decade ago.

Kaiser spokesperson Marc Brown said the actual construction of the hospital alone ran $557 million, although that price did not include equipping and furnishing the hospital. The construction of the medical offices and a multi-story parking structure with a capacity of 1,200 vehicles added millions more to the total price, he noted.