Kaiser building demo approaching
More than three years after vacating its hospital on Hesperian Boulevard, Kaiser Permanente has submitted proposed building demolition plans and is in talks with the city on ways to minimize the project’s impacts on the surrounding South Hayward community.
The nonprofit health care provider replaced its Kaiser Hayward Medical Center with a new modern facility eight miles away in San Leandro just west of Interstate 880. The old hospital building did not meet new seismic-safety standards. The new hospital opened in May 2014.
Last month, city Development Services staff met with representatives of Kaiser and the State of California’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, which retains jurisdiction over portions of the property at 27400 Hesperian Boulevard, to discuss a phased demolition of the hospital complex and pedestrian overcrossing above Tennyson Road. The pedestrian bridge connects the old hospital to the parking structure serving the Kaiser medical office building on Sleepy Hollow Avenue.
Once begun, the demolition project is expected to take 13 months, beginning with removal of an underground storage tank, followed by interior demolition of hospital building and adjacent medical office building, followed by exterior demolition of both structures and the pedestrian bridge. The medical office building on Sleepy Hollow and the parking structure serving it will remain operational.
Before work begins, the city has asked Kaiser to prepare associated plans for community outreach and communication, road closures and traffic management, recycling, hazardous materials identification and handling, and site restoration, including grading, seeding, fencing and security to protect against erosion, trespassing, vandalism and visual blight.
