The completed project, a development of Loma Linda University Medical Center, is an 85,000-square-foot off-campus medical plaza that consolidates four independent healthcare organizations and more than dozen different healthcare services in two separate buildings. The project that has reached a milestone is Kaiser Permanente's Fontana Replacement Hospital, where officials recently marked its progress with a beam signing ceremony and expect the final steel beam to be raised into place within the next several weeks.

The Loma Linda Medical Center project was developed by for the university by Chicago-based Lillibridge. The new three-level, project is called Highland Springs Medical Plaza and was "fraught with extraordinary challenges" from a development standpoint, according to Lillibridge. The Chicago-based developer explains that, when executives of Loma Linda University Medical Center decided to build two new facilities about 15 miles away, the project "marked the first significant foray beyond the university's main campus." The new facilities would serve residents of Beaumont as well as the surrounding communities of Cherry Valley, Banning, Cabazon, Calimesa, Yucaipa and Oak Glen.

Lillibridge explains that the strategy was to better serve California's Inland Empire area, attracting new patients while reducing the need for current patients to travel to the main campus in Loma Linda. The medical plaza,which had a projected price tag of about $42 million, was also a collaboration involving the medical center, Faculty Practice Plan of Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Redlands Community Hospital and Beaver Medical Group. That made it the Loma Linda Medical Center's first major partnership with other healthcare providers.