Kaiser Permanente officially put shovels in the ground Thursday for a new seven-story replacement hospital at its Sunnyside Medical Center campus in Happy Valley, a project the health system says will open in 2029 and take the place of the aging patient tower now on site. Kaiser is pitching the build as both a capacity boost and a sustainability play for the east side of the Portland metro area. Work will roll out in phases so the campus can keep caring for patients while construction crews operate around them.
As reported by Portland Business Journal, the ceremony kicks off a roughly three-year construction program that Kaiser and its partners have scheduled to wrap with an opening in 2029. The outlet notes that this is a full replacement of the existing hospital tower rather than a simple renovation, following a public planning process that played out last year. Local officials joined Kaiser representatives at the groundbreaking to officially launch on-site work.
In a March 31 press release from Kaiser Permanente, the system detailed plans for a seven-story, 615,000-square-foot tower that will offer 100% private patient rooms, in-room telemedicine, advanced robotics and image-guided surgical equipment, plus expanded emergency capacity. Kaiser also said the Sunnyside tower will be Oregon’s first fully electric hospital, a design choice intended to cut the campus’s carbon footprint and improve local air quality. “This significant upgrade to our campus will take us into the future of health care,” said Wendy Watson, Kaiser Permanente of the Northwest’s regional president.
Project teams and building program
Contractor and design materials list roughly 308 patient beds, a central utility plant, imaging and surgery suites, and a family birthing center as core pieces of the new hospital program. Andersen Construction describes the Sunnyside work as a 615,000-square-foot, seven-story hospital, while Permasteelisa notes it will supply the façade systems for the new tower. Project descriptions indicate the design adapts an existing Kaiser hospital template to Pacific Northwest conditions…