Los Alamitos Medical Center officials gave their preliminary 25-year plan for expansion during a community meeting Wednesday, Feb. 10.
Michele Finney, CEO of the facility, said the hospital wants to expand from its current 167-bed capacity to more than 300 and create more parking for its 1,100 employees and patients. Finney said 88 percent of the 100,000 patients the facility sees a year come from within an eight-mile radius of the hospital.
Over the next 25 years, LAMC would like to expand its emergency room and office space and provide more private care rooms for its patients. Presently, 65 percent of patients are in rooms that have two to four patients in them.
To begin the process, the hospital is expected to submit a Specific Plan of its wants to the city later this month.
An Environmental Impact Plan analysis is expected to be completed later this year. Before any work is started, public hearings will be held to get neighbors to weigh in on the idea.
Pamela Sapetto of Sapetto Engineering said that such things as traffic flow will be looked at as well along with an overall project analysis. If the city approves the plan, work can begin on the parking structures. All patient care buildings must also be approved by the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development which will take anywhere between 18-24 months once the city approves the project, Sapetto said.
Phase 1 will include the construction of a six-level (three story) parking structure which will include 1,000 stalls of paid parking. Phase 2 will include a 92-bed private patient care building. Once that is completed, the main hospital building will have its beds reduced to 113.
Phase 3 will include construction of another 126-bed patient tower as well as a second parking structure that employees would use, Finney said.
Many of the questions during the 45-minute meeting had to do with parking, an ongoing problem at the facility. Many employees are parking on the street and taking spots away from employees and patients at other nearby businesses.
Once approval is given by the city, work on Phase 1 will begin and should take between 9-12 months.
Former council member Dean Grose suggested making the first parking structure bigger and allow people using neighboring offices to use spaces as needed. Finney said that during construction, traffic flow will be dispersed onto other streets to alleviate congestion.
