Saddleback Memorial Medical Center’s San Clemente campus may be razed and rebuilt in the next several years. Shown here is an architectural rendering of a potential look for the new facility. Rendering: Courtesy
By Jim Shilander
Saddleback MemorialCare Health System’s San Clemente campus may be getting a new look in the next several years.
Steve Geidt, the CEO of Saddleback Memorial’s campuses in San Clemente and Laguna Beach, said the system would propose razing the current facility on Camino de los Mares—the hospital nearest to Dana Point—to build a new facility on the same site. The potential new facility would boast three stories and 103,000 square feet and include a number of additional services.
The current plan would see the hospital close and be demolished in late 2015 and reopen in early 2017 but services would continue until work begins.
Saddleback has been examining the future of the site for about a year due to changes in the health care market, Geidt said. The plan has been approved by the Saddleback Memorial board as a concept, which will require further study.
The site study will include community outreach, in order to help determine the feasibility of the project. Saddleback has reached out to San Clemente city officials with regard to the process and the plan.
The current facility sits on 6.1 acres and is required to have 515 parking spaces. Geidt said the facility might not grow much.
“We can have a smaller footprint and be taller or a larger footprint and be shorter, but at the end of the day, that’s about what we can have,” he said. “This is something that would be modern, something that would be contemporary and something very attractive to the community.”