Medical center administrators speak to city council about plan for rebuilding
This map of the medical center shows the locations of the proposed new facilities shaded in white; existing buildings are shaded in tan. More information about the medical center’s planning effort is available at http://www.stanfordpackard.org.
BY ROSANNE SPECTOR
Top administrators of Stanford University Medical Center appeared before the Palo Alto City Council on July 23 to pave the way for their application to rebuild and expand the medical center.
Twelve speakers participated in the public comment period, making remarks that ran the gamut from enthusiastic support to cautious concern. Council members supported the project but made clear they would expect Stanford to mitigate the development's impact on traffic, housing, open space and views of the foothills.
"I think we sort of have two sets, the cheerleaders and the people that are anxious about what the impacts are," council member Jack Morton said after the public comment period concluded. "And somehow those two groups have to come together."
The underlying theme was concessions, with most comments touching on what Palo Alto should require of Stanford for approval of the development plan. Affordable local housing, a new junior high school on the Stanford campus, expanded shuttle service and a retention basin to prevent flooding of San Francisquito Creek were among the inducements council members and the public suggested.
Stanford presented its preliminary development plan to the city council last November and is expected to submit its formal application at the end of July. If the project goes through, the 50-year-old Stanford Hospital building will be gone. Its replacement—a seven-story structure with some buildings up to 130 feet—would be nearly twice as large, offering single-bed rooms for patients and families and enough space to bring its capacity from 456 patient beds to 600. Also, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital would add 425,000 square feet, which would accommodate 104 patient beds, bringing its capacity to 361 beds on site.
Under the plan, the medical school would modernize by replacing buildings without growing. The plan calls for demolishing the Alway, Edwards, Grant and Lane buildings, which were built in 1959, and erecting updated facilities.
The overall project is expected to cost more than a $1 billion and would take nearly a decade to complete. In the end, the envisioned medical center would meet seismic safety laws and keep pace with the burgeoning challenges of patient care, research and medical education, Stanford administrators said.
For the medical center and community, a top priority is rebuilding Stanford's emergency room to meet seismic-safety requirements in time for the state's deadline of 2013. The emergency room serves both Stanford Hospital and Packard Children's Hospital.
After Stanford's submission in November of the draft proposal, city staff began updating Palo Alto's guidance document for assessing Stanford medical center development projects on city land. It was a discussion of the document—the Stanford University Medical Center Area Plan— at the July 23 meeting that sparked wider discussion of the medical center's proposed project.
At the meeting, the chief operating officers of Stanford Hospital and Packard Children's, Michael Peterson and Susan Flanagan, described the needs that drive the project.
"We know that we have an aging population," said Peterson. "I'm included in that statistic, as many of you are. What that tends to lead to is higher use of inpatient care," said Peterson, noting both hospitals' capacity crunch. He and Flanagan also discussed the hospitals' needs for more space to accommodate the demands of modern medical technology and patients' desires for greater privacy and room for family members
Many of the public comments at the council meeting supported the project. "I like to see us leading the future. Not being dragged kicking and screaming into the next century, but to be up there with the people who are looking at the needs of the future," said Sally Probst, Palo Alto resident. "I urge your support for the expansion."
"I oppose having unduly burdensome conditions," said Palo Alto resident Walt Hays, who chairs the city's Green Ribbon Task Force on Climate Protection.
But the comment of Green Acres neighborhood activist Betsy Allyn was also typical: "I read recently that 20 years from now, Stanford University Medical Center may be unrecognizable. I sincerely hope that the same will not be true for Palo Alto," she said.
Stanford aims to submit formal application later this month, at which point the city will launch an environmental review process. A public scoping session for the environmental impact report is scheduled for Sept. 24. Final action on the report is slated for December 2008.
For updates and notices of future public hearings and community discussions visit http://www.stanfordpackard.org.
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