UCSD Health System Breaks Ground on Jacobs Medical Center

After several years of planning, the UC San Diego Health System broke ground Monday on its $670 million new medical center.

The Jacobs Medical Center will include four hospitals in one complex: the existing on Campus Point Drive, plus the three new hospitals­–Hospital for Cancer Care, Hospital for Women and Infants, and the Hospital for Advanced Surgery.

A few hundred supporters including, Mayor Jerry Sanders, Chancellor Marye Anne Fox, and Joan and Irwin Jacobs came out for the groundbreaking at the La Jolla site besides Thornton Hospital. The Jacobs gave a $75 million gift to UC San Diego Health System to assist in building the new medication center.

“The Jacobs Medical Center will strengthen our medical and research endeavors and will allow us to provide new, quality services that are currently not available anywhere in the community,” said Fox.

Sanders said the Jacobs Medical Center will transform San Diego into a world-class medical destination.

Building Facts:

• 10 stories
• 509,000 square feet
• 245 beds
• 108 medical/surgical beds
• 36 intensive care unit beds
• 8 labor and delivery rooms
• 14 operating rooms
• 52 neonatal intensive care unit bassinets
• Helicopter landing pad
• Construction completion scheduled for June 2016
• Total project cost of $670 million

Fox added that the new Medical Center will help people recover and live better lives.

“We are able to do that because of people like Joan and Irwin Jacobs,” said Fox. “We are extremely grateful for their lead gift that will make this project a reality.”

The Jacobs have strong ties to the university. Irwin, cofounder of Qualcomm Inc., was a founding member of UC San Diego. He served as a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 1966 to 1972. Joan served on the UC San Diego Foundation and currently chairs the university’s Friends of the Stuart Collection.

The Jacobs gave $15 million in 1997 to UC San Diego's School of Engineering, now the Jacobs School of Engineering, and then another $110 million in 2000.

UCSD said others area of the university have also benefited from the couple’s charitable contributions, including the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, the Rady School of Management, the Preuss School, the Shiley Eye Center, the Division of Arts and Humanities, and The Stuart Collection.

And their reach does not stop there; the Jacobs are supporters of the La Jolla Playhouse, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center, all in La Jolla.

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