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Hospital refines design for new addition

 

After years of negotiations and planning, the Sonoma Valley Healthcare District has found a plan that will allow it to comply with the state-mandated seismic safety requirements by the 2013 deadline, to modernize the facility in the interests of better healthcare for the community and to ensure continuity of operation - all on the existing hospital site.

The current plan was approved by the City of Sonoma Planning Commission on June 9. The Design Review Board approved the design on July 19.

The request included an approximately 9,000-square-foot, 32-foot tall, two-story stucco and stone addition to the west wing of the existing facility, to be located north of the current main entrance in the parking area. This addition will house the new surgical unit on the second floor with a new emergency room on the ground floor.

A portico running along the south side of the new addition will offer sheltered pedestrian access to the new building and to the current lobby/reception area. Facing the south side of the new building will be a landscaped courtyard.

Other changes will include changing the ambulance drop-off to shift west from its current mid-block placement on Andrieux Street, aligning with the new emergency room. Parking redistribution will include having the western parking area reconfigured as a single-loaded parking lot with 18 spaces with one-way routing, with the entrance on Bettencourt Street and the exit on Fourth Street West. South of the addition, the sound wall screening an existing group of generators and oxygen tanks will be replaced with an upgraded enclosure in keeping with the design of the new building. The MRI trailer will be moved within this enclosure.

In addition, the current Bettencourt loading dock area will be eliminated and in its place a new chiller yard will be developed, screened by a wall in the style of the new building. The Third Street West loading area will be altered and re-landscaped.

The hospital submitted a water-efficient landscape and irrigation plan, including a plant list identifying trees, shrubs, grasses, perennials, groundcovers and vines. New landscaping is proposed for the corner of Fourth Street West and Andrieux and just south of the emergency department entrance.