Lighting, pollution and increased parking associated with the massive rebuild of the Kaiser Medical Center along Broadway in Oakland brought out a couple dozen concerned neighbors to a recent informational meeting held Thursday evening, May 20, at Kaiser's Broadway Medical Office Building and Cancer Center, 3701 Broadway.

The biggest gripe and greatest number of questions came during a discussion over parking. One woman in particular complained that the city was moving too slowly and offering too many excuses for why an approved parking permit plan was not yet in place for neighborhoods surrounding the medical center.

The $1 billion Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center Replacement Project is in its second phase, with the steel frame of a 1,216-space parking garage taking shape on the southeast corner of West MacArthur Boulevard and Broadway. After the eight-story garage is completed, in the spring of 2011, a new 12-story hospital and other structures will be built on the same block.

Kaiser Permanente is building the hospital to meet new state standards for seismic safety. While the state standards go into effect in January 2013, Kaiser will likely qualify for an extension that will allow construction to go on until January 2015, said Judy DeVries, the assistant director of public affairs for Kaiser in the East Bay. 

“The Oakland rebuild is moving forward in a very good pace,” DeVries said.

So far, in Phase 1 of the project, a new medical office building and parking structure have been built on the northwest corner of Broadway and MacArthur.

In Phase 3, the existing hospital on the northeast corner of that intersection will be demolished and a new office building and parking structure will likely take its place.

“We definitely have master plan approval that includes Phase 3, a certain square footage of building on that site,” DeVries said. “What it will be and how we will use it hasn’t been decided yet.”

Phase 2 of the hospital rebuild will include a hospital support building and a central utility plant in addition to the hospital and parking garage. It was the topic of the  regularly scheduled monthly neighborhood meeting Thursday night.

About 3,400 residents around Temescal and Piedmont Avenue are eligible for a free permit for the next 50 years, courtesy of Kaiser. However, the parking program has been delayed since a poorly worded letter went out to many hospital neighbors in January. Staff changes and the city’s budget crisis have further complicated the effort.

“We’re doing everything we can,” Oakland supervising transportation engineer Ade Oluwasogo told the audience. “We’re hoping that by the time this (meeting) comes by next month, we will have lots of smiling faces.”

The two-story, 35,000 square-foot central utility plant also was discussed though the conversation centered on the structure’s emergency generators. In response to questions, the structure’s project manager, John Ismen, said emergency generators in the plant can only operate for up to 50 hours a year and will be limited to 70 decibels, which is about equal to the ambient noise already in the neighborhood.

In regards to questions about emissions from the emergency generators, he said the regional and state standards allow no more than 500 parts per million of particulates.

“Rough translation … that’s a very clean machine,” Ismen said.

Finally, in response to concerns about the lighting from the new parking garage, Doug Esplan II of Overaa Construction said that as many as three of the floors will be unused at night, greatly reducing the amount of interior lighting emitted from the structure.

However, he added, to get the garage finished on time during an unseasonably rainy spring, occasional Saturday work will have to occur.

Take Action

To get more information about Kaiser-area community meetings, contact Judy DeVries, assistant director, Public Affairs East Bay for Kaiser Permanente, 510-752-2004 or Judy.DeVries@kp.org.

Click to see all three phases of Kaiser's rebuild plan