The University of California San Diego has broken ground on a revitalization project of the Hillcrest campus.
The UC San Diego Hillcrest campus is located three miles north of downtown San Diego and 13 miles south of the university’s La Jolla Campus.
The new campus will feature state-of-the-art facilities, expanded patient care services and technologies and other community amenities to promote wellbeing, according to a UC San Diego statement.
Construction for the UC San Diego Long Range Development Plan encompasses approximately 60 acres and the redevelopment of the more than 50-year-old campus. The project also includes new housing and fitness facilities.
Redevelopment construction on the $2.5 to $3 billion project is expected to continue over approximately 15 years in five major phases.
“The reimagined Hillcrest campus will increase access to UC San Diego Health’s nationally ranked medical specialties and world-class patient care. The revitalization project will form a modern destination medical center that will further improve the exceptional care and medical education UC San Diego is known to deliver,” UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla states.
Phase 1 includes a 250,000-sq.-ft. outpatient pavilion anticipated to open in 2025, which will house specialty clinical programs, including oncology, neurosurgery, urology, otolaryngology and orthopedics, as well as ambulatory surgery operating rooms, gastroenterology procedure rooms, advanced imaging, infusion and radiation oncology.
The outpatient pavilion will address the growing demand for specialized diagnostic, treatment and surgical services. More specifically, new and significant space for multispecialty cancer clinics and infusion centers will allow UC San Diego Health, and its National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, to greatly increase access to cancer care throughout the region.
The first phase of construction also includes a new parking structure to provide approximately 1,850 spaces for employees, patients and visitors, plus related road and utility infrastructure. Planned upgrades for UC San Diego’s Hillcrest campus will be synchronized to reduce impact on the surrounding community while ensuring current, critical campus functions remain operational. Later phases of the project will include the replacement of the main hospital, which once served as the county hospital. The project is necessary to comply with 2030 seismic safety provisions of the California Hospital Code.
The Hillcrest campus includes a Level 1 Trauma Center, a Regional Burn Center and a Comprehensive Stroke Center. The Emergency Department manages more than 50,000 patient visits per year. Approximately 5,000 nurses, doctors, technicians, staff and administrators serve the needs of the community at the location.
