Kaiser Permanente Medical Center Railyards Sacramento

With the ground breaking in March of this year, the 8-story Kaiser hospital in the River District appears to currently drilling piles into the ground as well as shoring up walls that are below grade. This $1.5 billion project is expected to competed in 2029.

365 Railyards Blvd. Sacramento, CA 95811

Kaiser Hospital Plans For Railyards

Kaiser Sacramento Railyards Medical Center

Earlier this month Kaiser filed plans with the city to develop a medical facility in the Railyards. The main hospital building proposed would have 310-bed in an eight story building in addition to a parking structure, five story support building and energy center. The eight story building would have 657,500 square feet and the total property size for the project would be 17.4 acres at 105 Bercut Drive. Kaiser has an aggressive deadline with plans to begin construction this year. The estimated budget is at least $1.5 billion. To see more renderings and learn more about the project, go to AgencyCounter and click on the yellow dot at the corner of 5^th Street and Railyards Blvd.

It looks to me that the land around the car garage could be developed at a later date to expand and build another “L” shaped hospital… maybe when the Railyards are fully built out.

Kaiser Sacramento Railyards Medical Center

Kaiser Sacramento Railyards Medical Center

Kaiser Sacramento Railyards Medical Center

Kaiser Buys Railyard Property

Proposed Kaiser Hospital Tower in the Railyards

Nearly 2 ½ years after Kaiser submitted plans to the Planning and Design Commission to build a hospital in the railyards, Kaiser has announced the purchase of 18 acres for $33 million. Entitlements began in 2015, hopefully construction will begin soon now that the land has been obtained. The first phase of the will cost $749.5 million. Plans call for the 14-story hospital to include 420 beds as well as a large medical office. No date has been set for when construction will begin. Below is a map showing the current building height map, it appears most of the land is unrestricted.

Railyards building height map

 

Updated Railyard Plans

Proposed Kaiser Hospital Tower in the Railyards

Next week the Planning and Design Commission will look at Railyards proposed plan related to Major League Soccer and Kaiser Permanente hospital tower. A couple items that stood out to me in the revised plans were the new hospital building would comprised approximately 658,000 sf with the main hospital tower rising up to 14 stories in the center of the block, to a maximum height of approximately 230 feet with a helistop on the roof. A parking garage would be built on the western edge of the project with approximately 1,500 parking spaces.

Surface 

The proposed Major League Soccer Stadium would be constructed initially with seating for 19,621 attendees and the capacity to accommodate concerts with an attendance up to 21,500 people. As shown below, surface parking would be used in the interim before parking structures are constructed of approximately 4,000 spaces.

To review the report click here.

Kaiser 501 J Street Conversion

Rendering of Kaiser Permanent's plans to remodel building at 501 J Street

The former Sacramento Corporate Center at 501 J Street is schedule to finish conversion this fall into a Kaiser Permanente medical offices and outpatient center. The building was purchased in December 2014 for $40 million after the previous owner was a victim of the last real estate downturn. The six-story 191,238SF building was built in 1983 and includes 500-parking spaces.

The former Sacramento Corporate Center built in 1983 at 501 J Street

Preliminary Sacramento Railyards Plans Released

If you have been reading the Sacramento Business Journal lately, it appears the grand urban vision of the Railyards that’s been hyped over the last decade has now been scaled back in many ways. Developer Mark Friedman has asked the city to reduce amount of housing from the target goal of 10,000. The drop in housing goals comes from the reality that high-rise residential towers in Sacramento don’t add up meaning there is no clear track record in Sacramento for high-rise condo success.

Current state of  proposed Railyards area

Later this month LDK Ventures will formally acquire the Railyards from IA Sacramento Holdings, L.L.C., a subsidiary of InvenTrust Properties Corp. While reading another Sacramento Business Journal article on the Railyards, LDK Ventures suggests that most mid-rise offices will have big footprints filling a corporate campus on the northwestern corner of the site. Larry Kelley from LDK Ventures is quoted saying “I think what you’d get is something similar to the lifestyle centers you see in the suburbs, but in an urban area,” he said. After reading this, apparently the new owners gonna turn much of the area into something you find in the suburbs, pretty disappointing considering we have been told for years the Railyards would become the “New Downtown”. 

The only highlight I could find was that Kaiser’s plan for a medical center for the northwestern corner has preliminary plans for a high-rise medical tower on the eastern portion of the 18 acre project. Because of how other projects have gone in downtown over the years, I’m sure this high-rise tower will be scaled down too. Kelly also said that before the existing roads to the site can be opened to the public, another $100 million of infrastructure and several tons of fill dirt need to be delivered to the site.

Proposed Sacramento Republic FC stadium

Larry Kelly did tease the idea that 5 acres along the Sacramento River could be used for high-rise residential development with river views. Although I would love to see this, I’m highly skeptical the final vision will turn out like this.

   

A little background, last January work was competed on $68 million worth of streets, bridges and sidewalks in Sacramento's downtown Railyards. State bond funds paid for $56 million of the project's cost, and private developers paid for the remaining $12 million. The infrastructure project, which broke ground in 2009, is meant to allow private development of the 240-acre former industrial site. The state court system has already chosen part of the downtown railyards for the site of a future courthouse near the Federal Courthouse on I Street. Currently the New Sacramento Criminal Courthouse has been reduced to $300 million from its original budget of $552 million five years ago. The size of the project has also been reduce from a 16-story mid-rise to now a 12-story building and from 44 courtrooms to 35. Somehow with all the reductions of cost, the square footage of 405,500 has remained the same. As stated above, UC Davis has expressed interest in building a satellite campus on the site and the owners of the Sacramento Republic FC have said they would like to build a soccer stadium if the city is awarded a Major League Soccer franchise.

Sacramento Railyards boundary with the Kaiser proposal on the left
and Republic FC stadium on the right

Central Pacific Railroad established the Sacramento Railyards during the steam locomotive era. The company, which later became Southern Pacific, built the first shop in 1868 — before Sacramento gained fame as the western start of the first transcontinental railroad with the driving of the last spike on May 10, 1869.