UC San Diego Health marked a groundbreaking ceremony this week for the Gary and Mary West Outpatient Pavilion, a new La Jolla facility designed to handle orthopedic, spine and neurosurgical care without requiring patients to check into a hospital bed. The project is targeted to open in 2030 and will include a 23-hour post-surgical stay unit that the health system describes as the first of its kind at UC San Diego Health.
According to UC San Diego Health, the pavilion will enable procedures and recovery services that have traditionally required inpatient hospital stays. CEO Patty Maysent said the facility will bring specialty care, imaging, surgery, recovery and rehabilitation together at one outpatient destination. The health system says it will shift outpatient services currently handled at Jacobs Medical Center and the Koman Family Outpatient Pavilion to the new building, freeing Jacobs Medical Center to expand its complex inpatient care.
University planning documents differ on exactly how big the new pavilion will be. UC San Diego’s Planning, Design and Construction office describes the building as approximately 180,000 gross square feet on a 2.75-acre site, according to the university’s current-projects page. A September 2026 UC Regents action-item document instead put the figure at approximately 183,000 gross square feet, and an earlier September 2024 Regents proposal described the site as 3.25 acres with an anticipated 2028 delivery — figures that don’t match the later documents, and the record doesn’t explain why they shifted.
What the Pavilion Will House
The building is planned around an ambulatory surgery center with nine operating rooms and two procedure rooms, three interventional radiology suites including two biplane angiography units for neurosurgical interventions, and an integrated sterile processing department, per UC San Diego Health’s announcement. Its MRI procedural unit is expected to include MR-focused ultrasound and MR-guided laser ablation, along with neuromodulation implants and central nervous system delivery of biologic treatments…