Sansum Clinic and The Towbes Group held a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday to kick off construction of a new medical office park on the Foothill Triangle property at the southwest corner of Foothill and Cieneguitas roads in Santa Barbara.
“This is a significant time in the history of our clinic,” said Kurt Ransohoff, M.D., CEO and chief medical officer of Sansum Clinic. “There are many changes taking place in the health-care industry. This new center will enable us to prepare for the future needs of the community by expanding access to quality care in modern facilities with the latest equipment and technology.”
The Sansum Clinic Foothill Medical Center will consist of two buildings of approximately 60,000 square feet of medical office space.
The larger building along Foothill Road will have medical offices and an ambulatory surgery center, which will enable Sansum Clinic to align departments with similar needs strategically under one roof. The smaller building at the southeast corner of the lot will house the Sansum Clinic Eye Care Center.
The center will provide patients with personalized care in a multispecialty facility equipped with the most advanced technology and will enable the clinic to continue to recruit the best and the brightest health-care professionals from across the nation.
The medical center was designed by local architect Richard Six of Lenvik & Minor Architects, whose other designs include Lazy Acres, Loreto Plaza and Ralph’s downtown.
The approval process included annexation of the property to the City of Santa Barbara. Construction will take place throughout 2013, with an anticipated opening in mid-2014.
Before building a multispecialty clinic in Lompoc in 2003, the last facility Sansum Clinic built from the ground up was the multispecialty clinic at 317 W. Pueblo St. in 1976.
Speakers at Tuesday’s groundbreaking includes Michael Towbes, chairman and owner of The Towbes Group, Ransohoff and Santa Barbara City Councilman Randy Rowse.
— Jill Fonte is the director of marketing for the Sansum Clinic.