Commission Deals Blow to Planned Expansion of LLUMC Heart and Surgical Hospital

There was support for annexation of county land.

There was support for changing the property zoning to allow use by a medical facility.

But when presented with a plan that could change the course of the historic Mill Creek Zanja, the Loma Linda Historical Commission’s support came to a halt.

On Monday, the commission voted not to support a plan for the expansion of the Loma Linda University Medical Center Heart and Surgical Hospital that could have realigned the zanja.

The zanja, is a ditch or channel, directed water from Mill Creek above Mentone to irrigate farms. A Spanish engineer laid out the alignment of the ditch, and many local natives worked on the channel so it would bring reliable water to a spot along Mission Road in what is now Loma Linda, near Heritage Park, according to Shipp.

According to a staff report, the medical center is proposing to expand the hospital, on the northeast corner of New Jersey Street and Barton Road, into the adjoining county property.

To do so, Loma Linda will have to annex 11.68 acres of county land on the southeast corner of Orange Avenue and New Jersey Street. The zoning would also have to be changed from residential to medical.

If approved, the plan could include the construction of two 90,000-square foot medical office buildings, a 32,000 square-foot expansion of the existing building, administrative/support facilities and a 5,000 square-foot central plant, a loading dock and a two-level parking structure.

But commissioners expressed deep concern over the language in the proposed plan allowing for a realignment that would have included landscape enhancements complimented by mission style buildings.

“The zanja trail is more than just a commemorative trail,” said Commission chairman Jim Shipp. “It is on top of the buried and preserved zanja which is really the oldest European influenced structure in the Inland Empire.”

Commissioners noted the zanja trail was not represented in site plan maps and that the trail currently runs through a building marked as a 30-bed expansion. The trail is currently marked by a six-foot wide path of decomposed granite that was built into the development of the original hospital project, according to the report.

Representatives said the plan was merely in the conceptual phase. None of the plans are concrete, they said.

“It’s not the wrong time to have the discussion,” Shipp said.

“We weren’t trying to come in here and get something passed that the developers couldn’t get passed,” said Hilary Kingsley, senior project manager, construction management. “I think we were mistakenly under the impression, obviously very mistakenly, that we could move that path. Obviously we can’t move the path.”

But the plans are so preliminary that those plans can completely change, Kingsley said.

“Without the zanja there would have been no European presence as we know it on the north side of the valley,” Shipp said. “Citrus would probably not have been planted.”