11/21/06
Medical center presents major building plan to Palo Alto City Council
By ROSANNE SPECTOR
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| This map of the medical center shows the locations of the proposed new facilities shaded in white; existing buildings are shaded in tan. More information about the medical center’s planning effort is available at http://www.stanfordpackard.org. | |
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To meet state seismic standards, community needs and advances in modern medicine, Stanford University Medical Center is proposing a major building project on medical center land in Palo Alto. Medical center leaders presented the preliminary plan at a Palo Alto City Council study session Nov. 20.
The plan was prompted, in part, by the requirement for Stanford Hospital, which houses the Peninsula’s only level-1 trauma center, to comply with state-mandated seismic safety laws. The proposed changes also arise from the need to create a center for medical education, research and patient care that will keep up with the substantial advances in medicine and increased community demand.
The study session starts a process that is likely to take several years, as the city considers the specifics of the proposal. Construction of the facilities would extend into the next decade. The immediate next steps include an application for rezoning of the land, the completion of an environmental impact report and extensive public review.
Martha Marsh, CEO of Stanford Hospital & Clinics; Christopher Dawes, CEO of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, and Philip Pizzo, dean of the School of Medicine presented the plan to the council.
“Our ability to offer quality patient health care, increase patient privacy and improve emergency room services is dependent on seismically safe, modern facilities,” said Marsh. “We are seeking city and community input as part of a planning process to design and build seismically-safe, modern facilities to continue to serve the health-care needs of Palo Alto and the community.”
The medical school’s dean, Philip Pizzo, MD, described the extraordinary benefits to Palo Alto and the world resulting from Stanford’s research and clinical advances. Among these are medical linear accelerators, advanced medical imaging and heart and heart-lung transplants. And on the biotechnology front, Stanford researchers are responsible for sequencing more than 11 percent of the human genome.
“We believe that the proposed steps you’ve heard here are not only wise but essential if we are to achieve our mission in the next 50 years,” Pizzo said.
Mayor Judy Kleinberg thanked the Stanford presenters for opening the discussion and gave the other council members the opportunity to speak. Though enthusiastic about the medical center leaders’ vision, the council members raised concerns about traffic, environmental impacts and increased pressure for the city to provide low-cost housing should the workforce at the medical center expand.
“It’s an honor to have the leaders of the medical center here,” said Vice Mayor Yoriko Kishimoto. “Of course Stanford medical center is a major asset to Palo Alto. As such, Palo Alto is very happy to work with you. There’s no choice. We do have to work collaboratively together. We’re basically joined at the hip.”
Three of the nine council members did not attend the meeting because they have ties to Stanford that could create conflicts of interest.
The medical center’s campus consists of Stanford Hospital, built in 1959, with extensions built in 1973 and 1989; the School of Medicine’s teaching and research facilities, some of which date back to 1959 as well; Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, built in 1991, and several buildings housing administrative offices and clinics, including the Comprehensive Cancer Center, the most recent addition to the medical center campus, completed in 2004.
The plan for Stanford Hospital & Clinics calls for a combination of new construction, demolition of the 1959 and 1973 buildings and reuse of existing buildings. The construction would consist of a new core hospital, clinics and offices of 1.4 million square feet. Seven hundred thousand square feet of old space would be demolished, resulting in a net addition of approximately 730,000 square feet.
The hospital would be on a site adjacent to the Comprehensive Cancer Center, Pasteur Drive and Welch Road. Both the medical offices at 1101 Welch Road and a parking lot that is next to the current hospital would be demolished to accommodate the new hospital and its below-ground parking garage. That new parking structure would have room for 700 cars. Another 695-car parking garage to serve both Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Packard Children's Hospital would be provided at a yet-to-be-determined site.
The new core hospital would include 456 beds, while the remaining 1989 building would accommodate 144 beds; that would result in a total of 600 beds. Stanford Hospital currently operates 456 beds but has a license to operate 613. The current hospital would continue operating until the new facility opens.
For Packard Children’s Hospital, the plan proposes to build 425,000 square feet of new facilities on a site now occupied by a medical office building at 703 Welch Road. This new space would house 104 patient beds, bringing the total to 361 beds. It would also include surgical, diagnostic and treatment rooms; nursing and support offices; clinics and administrative offices, and 150 additional parking spaces.
“Last year alone, our hospital was forced to turn away more than 200 critically ill children and refer them to other health-care facilities due to lack of patient beds. We served more than 82 percent of Palo Alto pediatric patients requiring hospitalization and delivered more than 5,000 babies,” said Dawes, the Packard CEO. “Our mission is to serve children and families, and our facilities are limiting our ability to fulfill this mission. We simply cannot continue to turn away children who need our care.”
As for the medical school, the plan proposed to Palo Alto calls for demolishing its Alway, Edwards, Grant and Lane buildings, which were built in 1959, and replacing them with updated school facilities of the same total size.
New office space would also be made available in the nearby vicinity through the reuse of the Hoover Pavilion and the addition of a new medical office building on that site. This would replace space lost by the tearing down of the buildings at 703 and 1101 Welch Road, which houses community practitioners.
The total proposal for all of the additional facilities will add 1.3 million square feet to the 2.3 million square feet currently occupied by medical center facilities in Palo Alto. It also calls for building some portions of the children’s hospital to 85 feet and the new Stanford Hospital to a height of 115 feet, which is roughly the same height as the adjacent 108-foot Beckman Center and less than half the height of the 285-foot Hoover Tower. The proposed height increases would require a zoning amendment, as they would exceed the city’s height limit of 50 feet.
The medical center’s leaders see no alternative to rebuilding: Stanford Hospital & Clinics would not be allowed to remain open after 2013 because it is not in compliance with the latest state seismic standards. As building plans have not been drawn up, the project’s cost is not yet known. Based on typical hospital construction costs, the total cost would be more than $1 billion dollars.
The medical center has identified key issues to address as the project proceeds, including traffic mitigation and other potential impacts on Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Portola Valley and other adjacent lands.
To lessen the already existing space crunch, the medical school recently announced plans to move most of the school’s administrative units off campus next year. Stanford Hospital & Clinics has already begun moving some personnel off site. Stanford’s recent acquisition of space in Redwood City is intended as the ultimate home for the medical school units, as well as some outpatient clinics.
The renewal plan seeks to resolve the following problems:
- Seismic safety: State law requires all acute-care hospitals to meet seismic safety standards by 2013. As such, Stanford Hospital & Clinics must either retrofit or rebuild. The medical center favors rebuilding because retrofitting would be costly and would fail to address the need for a larger facility.
- Patient care capacity: Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital has an acute shortage of beds; the hospital turned away 200 critically ill children in 2005 because of the shortage. Stanford Hospital turned away 500 patients in 2005 because of inadequate beds available. The emergency department, which serves both hospitals, is grossly undersized. In 2005 approximately 950 visitors were referred to other emergency departments because of insufficient capacity at Stanford.
- Demographics: The region’s demographics are changing, with the proportion of seniors expected to increase. Lack of specialized services for this population, such as sufficient MRI machines for immediate assessment of stroke victims, will hamper the ability of the hospital to offer high-quality care.
- Outmoded facilities: Patients’ expectations have changed, calling for increased privacy and accommodations for family members. The demands of medical education and research have changed as well, requiring a wide range of new equipment and the space to use it in.
More information about the medical center’s planning effort is available at http://www.stanfordpackard.org.