A growing population with a need for specialized care is fueling hospital development in the Inland Empire. At least two groups announced plans to build medical facilities in the region this month.

Plans for a $300 million, 106-bed hospital and two medical office buildings in Murrieta are moving ahead.

By 2016 the hospital is expected to employ 500 doctors, nurses, technicians and other workers with an estimated payroll of $32 million. The medical office complex is expected to employ 210 people with an estimated payroll of $10.5 million. The hospital will offer teaching opportunities for nurses and physicians.

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Photos By Dan Elliott

Greg Christian, executive director of Kaiser Permanente Hospital Medical Center in Fontana, which will replace an existing, four-story, 364,815-square-foot hospital on the campus.

A 70-member doctor's group, the Physicians Hospital of Murrieta LLC, is partnering with Loma Linda University Medical Center and Nashville, Tenn.-based Surgical Development Partners to build the Murrieta facility.

The hospital will occupy 50 acres at the northeast corner of Antelope and Baxter roads, a mile north of the Clinton Keith Road interchange on Interstate 215.

The center and the group began planning for a Murrieta hospital in 2004 after the group realized the area needed more beds and specialized care.

By 2020 southern Riverside County will need an additional 1,400 hospital beds. Even with the planned growth at Inland Valley and Rancho Springs medical centers and other hospitals, the region will fall short 1,000 beds, said Michael Osur, deputy director of public health at the Riverside County Community Health Agency .

The Murrieta hospital will be built in phases. The first phase will include 106 beds, the second could add 114 beds and the final phase would add an undetermined number of beds, a complete obstetrics-gynecology unit and a pediatric unit. The hospital will feature six surgical suites, robotic surgery, an imaging center, emergency room care, general and acute-care services and medical specialties including cardio-vascular, obstetrics, pediatrics, urology and orthopedics.

"There is a significant need in this community for primary and sub-specialty care," said physician John Piconi, chairman of Physicians Hospital of Murrieta, in a release. "Some 60% to 65% of patients needing specialized treatment seek that treatment outside the area."

Two 120,000-square-foot medical office buildings will be built adjacent to the hospital.

Grading is slated for October and the hospital is set to open by January 2011.

Separately, nonprofit Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente plans to build a $700 million, 482,078-square-foot, 314-bed hospital on its 47-acre Fontana Medical Center campus.

The new hospital will employ up to 100 more people.

A 55,774-square-foot hospital support building and a 32,100-square-foot utility plant are set to be built. The hospital will include a 51-bed emergency department and a cardiac center.

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"We looked at Fontana to see if we could seismic retrofit and it was more expensive to do that than it was to build brand new," Christian said.

The new building will replace an existing, four-story, 364,815-square-foot hospital on the campus. The existing hospital will operate until the new facility opens in 2013.

Smaller buildings on the campus are set to be razed in January to make way for the new hospital, which will be located south of medical office building 3 and north of Valley Boulevard.

Patient rooms at the new hospital will measure 160 square feet, 40 feet larger than the typical room at the current hospital.

The new hospital will dedicate two of its 10 operating rooms to open-heart surgery, a service Kaiser diverted from Fontana to its hospital in Hollywood, or to the St. Bernardine Medical Center in San Bernardino, where Kaiser doctors go to perform the surgery.

Kaiser is aggressively growing its San Bernardino County services. The hospital operator will open the 224-bed Kaiser Permanente Ontario Vineyard Medical Center Hospital in 2011, a 60-clinician Redlands Medical Office building by October and a new medical office building in Upland. Kaiser also purchased a 101-bed hospital in Moreno Valley for $53 million in June.

Kaiser began to update its hospitals aggressively after California imposed new seismic standards on hospitals, said Greg Christian, executive director of Kaiser Permanente Fontana and Ontario.

Kaiser first announced in 1998 that it would build the hospital in Fontana to meet earthquake -safety standards because the 429-bed hospital built in 1953 was not suitable for upgrading.

A 1994 state law required seismically unsafe hospitals to be retrofitted, rebuilt or removed from in-patient use by 2008.

Those standards require that hospitals not only remain standing, but also operational following an earthquake.

"We looked at Fontana to see if we could seismic retrofit and it was more expensive to do that than it was to build brand new," Christian said. "The timing worked out for us to also prepare for the future growth of the Inland Empire."

Loma Linda University has begun spreading out in the Inland Empire.

The university plans to build a new $1 billion children's hospital in Loma Linda and in the last two months has either opened, broken ground or announced partnerships with other medical groups for five other facilities stretching from Colton to Murrieta.