Evan J. LancasterOn Thursday, Jan. 21, the University of California Board of Regents approved construction for the $1 billion UCI Medical Center Irvine-Newport project, which is now scheduled to break ground later this year.
This is a major milestone for the UCI Medical Center Irvine-Newport, which will become a state-of-the-art medical campus, featuring a 144-bed acute care medical facility.
As Irvine’s newest medical project moves to break ground in the coming months, Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan said she is already having discussions with UC Irvine about the potential impacts on the city of Irvine. With a few hundred residences near the project site, Khan said traffic mitigation had already become a topic of discussion in Irvine’s conversations with UCI.
Artist rendering courtesy of UCI
While Khan explained the meetings are in the preliminary stages, she said she expects the city and UC Irvine to reach agreements on traffic mitigation in the coming weeks.
“We’ll continue meeting to resolve some of these issues, and I’m hopeful that we’ll come to some sort of agreement,” Khan explained in an interview with Irvine Weekly.
The UC Irvine Medical Center Irvine-Newport will become the home of the Center for Children’s Health, and will also be designed to offer urgent care and emergency services.
Construction will begin in late 2021, beginning with the UCI Health Center for Advanced Care, which will eventually be the location for the Center for Children’s Health.
Slated for completion in 2025, the UCI Medical Irvine-Newport complex becomes Irvine’s third large medical installment since 2019, including the City of Hope’s first Orange County-based cancer care facility, along with UCI’s Center for Advanced Care.
Artist rendering courtesy of UCI
UC Chancellor Howard Gillman said the addition of the Irvine-Newport medical center will not only bring more robust medical care to Orange County, but it further institutes Irvine as a central location for providing the highest caliber of academic institutions that will inspire medical students for generations.
“With today’s approval by the regents, UCI takes a giant leap toward fulfilling the visionary expansion of our campus and enhancing service to the community,” Gillman said. “Once this project is completed, the UCI health care system will be unparalleled in this region, with two advanced medical centers, nationally recognized research units conducting hundreds of clinical trials, and a network of community locations stretching to all corners of Orange County.”
Spanning more than 800,000 square-feet, the UCI Medical Center Irvine-Newport and UCI Health Center for Advanced Care are the final building blocks to UCI’s Presidential Gateway, a 202-acre project within the San Joaquin Marsh Reserve.
Chad Lefteris, CEO of UCI Health, said that the combination of exceptional patient care, the most advanced technology, an accessible location, and proximity to research and innovation will truly benefit the residents of coastal and southern Orange County.
“No other health system in the county is powered by one of the world’s finest academic research institutions: the University of California,” he said. “Our goal is to make this expertise easily available to everyone in Orange County.”
Lucy Dunn, president and CEO of the Irvine-based Orange County Business Council said this project will help anchor Irvine as a central hub for innovative health care services in Orange County, while creating workforce longevity for the local medical industry.
“What I really love about this project is that it’s a series of great health care and health innovation projects in Irvine, and particularly Orange County, where we’ll be becoming a great leader in health care services,” Dunn said in an interview with Irvine Weekly. “You have UCI, which has been a hub of innovation for years, along with our entire medical device industry. We’re the capital of the medical device industry in the world – it all happens around UCI – and now to add a health center – it’s not just more jobs, but high paying jobs.”
Artist rendering courtesy of UCI
As the $1 billion UCI Medical Center Irvine-Newport project gets underway, Dunn added that this project will create an immediate economic impact on the local community.
Considering the economic hardships created by the COVID-19 pandemic, Dunn says that while the construction jobs may not be permanent, these municipal and environmental jobs are what help create long-term economic stability.
“It’s the multiplier effect of the businesses that it will create around it. During construction, there are going to be high-paying construction jobs, dirt movers, earth movers – they make very good money. And to make sure that the San Joaquin Marsh reserve is protected, there will be good environmental jobs,” Dunn explained. “So it’s that multiplier effect – the hospital, the health care and the innovation – those are the permanent jobs. But even the short-term construction jobs and environmental jobs help a sputtering economy come back to life.”
Tom Vasich, Senior Director of Communications & Media Relations for UC Irvine, said bringing UC Irvine Medical into the South County region of Orange County will help better serve the community’s health care needs.
“I think it’s going to be a great community resource, there’s quite a need in this particular area for more health care options for people. At our Orange hospital – our main medical center – we’re pretty much full – and it’s not because of COVID-19. This central, South County area, all of our research and working with consultants determined that a medical complex, like the one we’re doing, would be very beneficial to the community.”
Vasich added that another major component of this project will be to preserve the natural areas of the San Joaquin Marsh Reserve, which includes natural wildlife habitats, a bird sanctuary, along with potentially historic Native American artifacts.
“We’re working closely with the city of Irvine, the county and the city of Newport Beach to address issues like traffic, noise and environmental concerns,” Vasich explained in an interview with Irvine Weekly. “We’ve done a lot of work already, to reach out to the community in order to address concerns that they might have. One example is that we’re actually working with local Native American groups, because that site may have artifacts, from previous tribal encampments.”
Prior to the establishment of Orange and Riverside counties, the portion of land surrounding the San Joaquin Marsh was occupied by the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians, along with the Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians.
“We’re working with them on an archeological basis, to make sure we’re handling any archeologically sensitive materials responsibly, and in line with the wishes of these Native American groups,” he said. “This whole area, called the UCI Presidential Gateway, there’s going to be a minimum of a 50-yard buffer between any parts of the UCI Presidential Gateway – including the hospital project and the marsh – in order to protect the environment there, and also the animal life there.”
Artist rendering courtesy of UCI
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