Building Trades News

• Project Providing Steady Work in Tough Times

More than a year after starting construction, Trades members are working on schedule to deliver Kaiser Permanente’s new $500 million hospital complex in Orange County.

Heralded as a “godsend” by union reps during one of the worst periods of the downturn – and in an area that was particularly hard-hit – the project is still providing jobs for a large number of members.

According to John Stratman, director of public affairs for Kaiser Permanente, the first medical office building is now open and fully operational, while the parking structure and main medical center remain under construction.

“The steel is in the ground, and we’re anticipating full completion and opening of the campus in winter of 2013,” he says. “That may move up, but we don’t know yet. Everything is on schedule and we’re hoping the time frame might move up. But at this point, we’re happy that in the current economy we’re able to be building in Anaheim.”

At build-out, Kaiser estimates about 1200 construction and full-time jobs will have resulted from the project.

Kaiser’s Anaheim Medical Center campus, as it’s officially titled, will be located in the Canyon Business Center in Anaheim, a more-than 2300-acre site in northeast Anaheim housing office, research and development and industrial clients.

The 434,000 square-foot, 6-story hospital building will house 262 beds and include a partial basement, while the adjacent hospital support building will be housed in a 172,000 square-foot, 6-story structure. There will also be a 3-story, 31,800 square-foot central utility plant.

Last Monday, Herric started structural steel erection for the remaining portions of the complex, says Damien Buessing of Hensel Phelps, general contractor on the job. “Right now everything is on schedule, the crews are doing great outside, and there have been no incidents,” he says.

Jim Adams, LA/OC Building Trades Represnetative for Orange County, noted that crews recently started work on the medical tower, and will be working on several major foundation pours soon.

“I was just out there yesterday,” says John Ibarra, business representative with IUOE Local 12 in Anaheim. At the moment, he says, Local 12 has about 17 operating engineers on site. Daily averages have ranged from about 4 to 15 throughout the project, he says.

Doug Clark, also with Local 12, says “We’re still working out there good. Another big pour coming up and a lot of our concrete trucks out there, and we have about 5-6 cranes working right now. Looking pretty good.”

Hensel Phelps and several other companies had cranes on-site in early December, working on the parking structure, hoisting for the rebar, dirt work and a major concrete pour, which included operating engineers, inspectors, masons and laborers.

Kaiser Permanente

Seeing the opportunity created by a demand for medical and healthcare services that often accompanies periods of economic hardship, Kaiser Permanente has been expanding its footprint in Southern California with several new hospital complexes.

The Anaheim project is part of the so-called “triplets” of template hospitals, with two other similar projects being built in San Leandro and Fontana.

Kaiser is known to build union and has a good working relationship with the Trades in Southern California, according to representatives from both entities.

Kaiser has elsewhere demonstrated its commitment to organized labor: In 2007, the corporation made a joint grant with the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions of $450,000 to the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Maryland. The grant, which grew out of the 1997 labor-management partnership, was given to fund the Kaiser Permanente Healthcare Institute, a program dedicated to educating labor leaders and union members on healthcare issues. Donors claim this is the first such grant from a healthcare provider to the labor community.