May 11, 2022 – UC Davis Health started this week on demolishing temporary office structures on the site for the new hospital tower at UC Davis Medical Center. UC Davis Health leaders say the $3.75 billion California Tower project will create hundreds of new construction jobs in the building phase but will expand demand for healthcare workers in the long term with thousands of new positions.
UC Davis Health says the new California Tower will be the region’s most advanced hospital tower when it opens in 2030.
The construction project received approval from the University of California Board of Regents in January, and the new structure will replace sections of the hospital that will not meet new seismic mandates set to go into effect in 2030.
“This project will further harness the advantage of UC Davis Medical Center being one of Sacramento County’s largest employers to increase community wealth-building and strengthen our surrounding neighborhoods,” said Brad Simmons, chief administrator of UC Davis Medical Center. “This project will help improve health outcomes for area residents and ensure a robust health care safety net for historically marginalized populations, especially when it comes to providing specialty care hospital services.”
The California Tower will be14 stories high and have a five-story pavilion that connects it to the existing medical center. The new structures, which will total roughly 1 million square feet of space, will include operating rooms, an imaging center, an expanded pharmacy, additional burn care units, and about 400 single-patient rooms.
When this work is completed, the medical center will offer 675-700 inpatient beds, up from 646 now. Hospital personnel will be able to convert more than 250 rooms in the new tower intensive-care-unit rooms with air isolation to accommodate patients of any level of hospitalization.