UC San Francisco unveiled plans Thursday to construct a $1.5 billion replacement hospital, which will be supported by a record-breaking $500 million commitment, reports The Mercury News.
The donation, from the Helen Diller Foundation, will support the planning, design and construction of the facility. The new $1.5 billion hospital will replace the aging, out-of-date San Francisco-based Moffitt and Long Hospitals. Under state law, patient care at the Moffitt Hospital had to be relocated to meet seismic code requirements.
"The current hospital was designed 60 years ago," Mark Laret, CEO of UCSF Medical Center, told The Mercury News. "Air conditioning was not standard. There was no such thing as electronic medical records. Imaging equipment wasn't there. We've done a good job modifying it, but that's not like having a new hospital."
The replacement facility, expected to open by 2030, is part of a revitalization project for UCSF's Parnassus Heights campus. The hospital will be constructed on the site currently occupied by the San Francisco-based Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital and Clinics.
With the $500 million pledge, the Diller family has now donated more than $1.15 billion to UCSF.
Helen Diller was a San Francisco native and her husband, Sanford Diller, founded the real estate development giant Prometheus Real Estate Group. The real estate group constructed the twin towers in New York and more than 13,000 apartments in the California Bay Area, Seattle, and Portland, Ore.
"The gift is stunning in its size, and the number of lives it touches," Mr. Laret said, according to the report.