El Cajon city leaders voted unanimously on July 28 to direct staff to analyze legal, financial, land-use and policy options for a 25-acre Kaiser Permanente site that has sat empty since 2002, including the possibility of the city acquiring the land outright. The vacant parcel, at the southwest corner of Greenfield Drive and East Main Street, has attracted homeless people in the two decades it has remained undeveloped despite Kaiser’s long-stated intent to build a regional medical campus and hospital there.
The council’s move, first detailed by The San Diego Union-Tribune, puts possible acquisition of the Kaiser property alongside other tools city staff have been told to study, including legal options aimed at forcing progress on a project that has languished since Scripps Memorial Hospital East County shuttered on the site in 2002. Mayor Bill Wells said he is beginning to worry about the property and described it as an eyesore in the middle of a city that is largely built out, according to the Union-Tribune. Wells said he wants to again consider legal options to force the project forward, per the same report.
Kaiser bought the land after Scripps closed the 162-bed hospital that previously stood there, and the site’s development has remained part of Kaiser’s long-term capital plan ever since, per the Union-Tribune. A city staff report cited by the Union-Tribune said the site has economic, employment, housing and public-benefit potential and represents one of El Cajon’s most significant remaining development opportunities. In 2022, El Cajon officials passed an ordinance requiring Kaiser to develop a comprehensive plan for the entire site before construction could begin, the paper reported.
Kaiser Says It Remains Committed, But Offers No Timeline
Kaiser spokesperson Kerry Forde said the company continues to evaluate the property’s potential and remains committed to the health and well-being of patients in El Cajon and East County San Diego, according to the Union-Tribune. Forde added that Kaiser remains willing to work collaboratively with El Cajon regarding the property’s future development, the paper reported. Kaiser currently operates two primary outpatient medical offices in El Cajon, located on Travelodge Drive and East Main Street, rather than the inpatient hospital many residents have been waiting on…