Industrial Project Would Include a Hospital

A mixed-use commercial and industrial project is under construction in Eastvale that will feature an acute care hospital, if all goes as planned. Some hurdles remain, but officials are confident they can find a healthcare provider willing to locate in northwest Riverside County, an area that everyone agrees needs more hospital beds.

Like a lot of cities in the Inland Empire, Eastvale has an industrial project under construction within its borders.

This development, on Hamner Avenue next to Interstate 15, has an interesting component attached to it: Eastvale’s first hospital, assuming city officials and the project’s developer, Irvine-based Goodman Birtcher, can get the project permitted with the state of California and then persuade a health care provider to locate there.

“We’re looking at getting a full-service, acute care hospital, which is something that’s really needed in this part of Riverside County,” Eastvale Mayor Ike Bootsma said. “Right now, the closest hospitals we have are Corona Regional [Medical Center] or San Antonio [Community] Hospital in Upland, and both of those are quite a distance away.

“We need something a lot closer, and we’re pretty sure we’re going to get it. We just don’t know who it’s going to be yet.”

Goodman Commerce Center Eastvale broke ground last summer on a 205-acre parcel in the northeast part of the city known as the panhandle.

Construction is underway on the first of two warehouse-distribution centers, each of which will cover one million square feet. The project, which will cost an estimated $366 million to develop, was approved unanimously by the Eastvale City Council in November 2014.

It’s by far the largest mixed-use project ever proposed in Eastvale, which incorporated in October 2010 and has a population of approximately 66,000. Besides the two warehouse-distribution centers and proposed hospital, Goodman Commerce Center Eastvale will

include a 193,000-square-foot business park, 430,000 square foot of retail and possibly a hotel.

Like the hospital, a hotel developer hasn’t been found, but city officials are hoping to persuade a mid-sized facility to locate there, maybe from the Hilton chain, Bootsma said.

Goodman Birtcher, which develops and owns commercial and industrial properties, also plans to spend $28 million on public improvements related to the project, including widening Cantu-Gallleano Ranch Road and Hamner Avenue, the project’s northern and western borders, respectively.

The project is being built on land formerly owned by Lewis Retail Centers in Upland. The site was originally designated for residential but was rezoned because the city needed more commercial-industrial space, Bootsma said.

Goodman Commerce Center Eastvale, which will be developed in phases, is expected to create more than 4,000 jobs, according to the the project’s website.

Some residents opposed the project when it was first proposed, but after Goodman-Birtcher agreed to make some changes – including eliminating a warehouse-distribution center that would have been built on Hamner Avenue and making adjustments to better handle truck traffic – that opposition went away, Bootsma said.

Goodman Commerce Center Eastvale has the potential to transform the city – which was a rural area dominated by dairy farms until the late 1990s – and give Eastvale its own landmark and identity.

Bootsma has made it clear that getting the hospital built is the city’s primary focus. He has opposed including any residential in the development, and during a council meeting this month, he declared that he would oppose any efforts to make the project exclusively a cluster of warehouses.

“We want something better than that,” Bootsma said. “Right now, Eastvale doesn’t have a hospital and it doesn’t have a hotel, and we’re a population of 66,000. We need both.”

Ultimately, the hospital’s developer and whatever health care provider locates there will determine what the facility looks like. However, Eastvale officials envision a six-story structure that would start with about 100 beds and eventually expand to 200 or more, Bootsma said.

Getting a hospital up and running will also take time: construction and zoning permits for any medical facility are never easy to obtain, and doing so for a hospital in an industrial area, where traffic and pollution are certain to be issues, could make the process even more difficult.

Still, Bootsma made it clear that the city will do it whatever it must to get Goodman Commerce Center Eastvale developed, with the hospital as its centerpiece.

“We need this because it will create jobs and a tax base,” said Bootsma, who has been on the city council since Eastvale incorporated. “We have to do this right, because whatever we put there will be there for 30 years at least.”

Officials with Goodman Birtcher did not respond to requests for comment.

Any hospital in or near Eastvale would be welcome because there is a shortage of hospital beds in northwest Riverside County, said Jennifer Bayer, vice president of external affairs for the Hospital Association of Southern California in Los Angeles.

That demand is likely to grow as more people get insured under the Affordable Care Act, Bayer added.

“It’s difficult to get an exact number, but that market is definitely under-bedded,” Bayer said. “That’s true of the entire Inland Empire region, where you still have a lot of people who get their medical treatment in the emergency room. So any hospital in that area would help.”

Putting a hospital in an industrial area could present some challenges, but such a location would not by itself keep the facility from being built.

“It’s a little unusual, but it’s not unheard of,” Bayer said. “Like a lot of things, hospitals are changing the way they do business. It will be interesting to see how this works out.”

One thing Goodman Commerce Center Eastvale has in its favor is that, unlike a lot of large industrial projects, no one seems to be against it, said Dickie Simmons a 13-year Eastvale resident and a frequent attendee at the city’s planning commission and city council meetings.

“I’m all for it, and I haven’t heard of any opposition to it,” said Simmons, who retired from the Los Angeles Police Department in 1991. “I trust the city council that it’s doing the right thing. It will be in a part of the city that doesn’t get a lot of traffic, and it’s going to create more sales tax revenue. We need all of that we can get.”