Approvals expired for Dignity’s planned Elk Grove hospital — will it be built?
City approvals for Elk Grove’s first hospital expired nearly five years ago, and a state agency said there are no records of construction or building permits, leaving the timeline for when the facility would be constructed or opened even more unclear.
The hospital, slated to be built at Elk Grove Boulevard and Wymark Drive, is planned by Dignity Health, which operates six hospitals in the capital region.
The nonprofit health system’s website and other documents listed the estimated opening date of the hospital as 2026 or 2027, but a spokesperson told The Sacramento Bee on Feb. 3 that they “don’t have a timeline to share” as to when the hospital would open. The spokesperson confirmed that a website listing a 2026 opening date was “not accurate” and the website listing it was “outdated.” Hours after The Bee’s requests for more information, the webpage was taken down.
California’s Department of Health Care Access and Information, which handles the review of construction plans and the issuing of permits for hospitals, said it had no records of permits for a hospital being built by Dignity Health, or its parent company CommonSpirit. The agency, in response to a Public Records Act request, could not say whether the permits had expired or were still in place.
After Dignity Health purchased the land in 2007, the hospital project was approved by the City Council on July 10, 2013. No approvals have been before the council since, according to Kristyn Nelson, a spokesperson for the city.
The approved proposal included a design review of the master development plan, as well as the hospital’s surgery and maternity wing; a conditional use permit to allow a hospital in that location; an amendment to the area’s design guidelines and the certification of an environmental impact report in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act, better known as CEQA.
The first phase of the hospital was proposed in 2013 documents to be a four-story, 112,050-square-foot surgery and maternity hospital building, including an urgent care, 12 labor and delivery beds, 20 postpartum beds, 14 neonatal intensive care beds, 2 C-section rooms, a nursery and two additional floors with approximately 30 beds per floor for the surgical unit.
The city’s approvals were valid until 2016 due to rules in the city’s municipal code, according to a city staff report and Nelson. After that, if “substantial construction work” had not been performed, an extension would be needed.
State law allowed a two-year extension of the approvals, according to Nelson, bringing the expiration date to July 2018.
On June 11, 2018, the city zoning administrator approved an extension to July 10, 2021.
Dignity Health unveiled its plans for the hospital in late 2019, months before the COVID-19 pandemic. Dignity Health also merged with Colorado’s Catholic Health Initiatives to form CommonSpirit the same year.
According to the city’s website, Dignity Health announced in January 2020 that the first phase of the project would be 200,000 square feet of new construction, including a 100-bed hospital, and the city planned to coordinate with the health system “on revising the phasing plan in a way that remains consistent with the prior approvals.”
But those approvals expired in 2021. As of last week, the site had no signs of construction.
Because the approvals expired, Dignity Health must resubmit the project to the City Council.
“Any new construction will require a new design review process and could trigger CEQA review,” Nelson said earlier this month.
A spokesperson for Dignity Health said the nonprofit is grateful for the “long-standing partnership” with Elk Grove in a statement Tuesday.
“Dignity Health looks forward to working with the city of Elk Grove to revise the previously approved land entitlements, and on the permitting of our hospital project with the Department of Health Care Access and Information, at the appropriate time,” a spokesperson for Dignity Health said in a statement to The Bee.
When is the hospital expected to open?
The timeline of when the hospital would open remained in limbo.
“Work continues internally to bring Elk Grove its first hospital, and while we don’t have a timeline to share, we hope to provide more details in the near future,” a spokesperson for Dignity Health said in a statement to The Sacramento Bee on Feb. 3.
Dignity Health’s website on Feb. 3 still listed the opening date for the hospital as 2026. A spokesperson for Dignity Health told The Bee that same day that date was “not accurate” and the website was “outdated.” The webpage was no longer viewable hours after The Bee’s inquiry.
A 2020 document attached on the company’s website listed the opening date as 2026 or 2027. A spokesperson for Dignity Health did not respond when asked if 2027 was still a possible opening time for the hospital.
The webpage that was taken down also listed that construction would take place from 2023 to 2025.
The hospital would be the first in Elk Grove, a city of more than 182,000 people. The nearest hospitals are Kaiser Permanente’s South Sacramento Medical Center and Dignity Health’s Methodist Hospital, both located north of Calvine Road in the city of Sacramento. However, for Elk Grove residents living farther south, east or west, that drive can take up to 25 minutes during high traffic times.
A three-story Dignity Health medical plaza is already located on a portion of the site on the 8200 block of Wymark, offering services including primary care, family medicine, pediatrics, general surgery, oncology and OB-GYN.
