Plans to dramatically expand West Oahu, Downtown hospitals advance at City Council
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The City Council’s Coning Committee on Thursday voted to advance plans to expand Queen’s Medical Center West Oahu and Straub Medical Center’s Downtown campus.
Queen’s is proposing a 15-year, $500 million renovation of its Ewa hospital, which will quadruple its size to about 1 million square feet.
Straub wants to invest $127 million over 15 years to add a new hospital tower and parking structure to its King Street and Ward Avenue facility.
“COVID has just put a spotlight on the need for expanded capacity,” said Jason Chang, president of the Queen’s Medical Center.
“We were really thinking about the future needs and medical needs of the community and the services now that don’t exist on the west side. People have to drive and be ambulanced into town in order to deliver babies or if (they) have a heart attack.”
Combined, the Queen’s and Straub projects will create about 1,000 jobs.
Queen’s said it wants to increase the number of beds from 104 to 364.
Straub said the new hospital tower will be 240 feet tall and that the parking structure that can be converted into new hospital space if needed. The number of beds will only increase by about 20 to 180.
The City Council will hold further public hearings on the expansion plans.
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