UC San Diego has broken ground on a massive medical complex next to Thornton Hospital in La Jolla.
The 10-story Jacobs Medical Center will feature three new hospitals: one for cancer care, one for women and infants and another for advanced surgery.
The center will have 14 operating rooms and 245 beds.
Los Angeles-based architect Cannon Design designed the complex. Cannon's planning principal, Carlos Amato, said patient input was critical in helping come up with a unique concept.
“The minute you walk into the building it has a very hospitality-like atmosphere," Amato pointed out. "And you’re not going to be exposed to the traditional hospital, heavy on clinical elements that you see all over town.”
San Diego philanthropists Joan and Irwin Jacobs gave $75 million to the project.
Irwin Jacobs said the center will serve as a new training hospital for the region.
“And I think combining that with all the research that goes on, on this mesa, bringing that to the clinical use much more rapidly, I think all of that’s gonna have a major impact on our medicine here,” Jacobs added.
The Jacobs Medical Center is scheduled to be finished by June 2016. UC San Diego officials say the first patients will be treated in December of that year.
