SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Update: Feb. 15, 8 p.m.
The Sacramento City Council approved the medical campus Tuesday night via unanimous vote.
Original Story:
Sleep Train Arena has become a historical, Sacramento landmark, and since the Kings moved to the Golden 1 Center, everyone wants to know what's next.
On Tuesday, the Sacramento City Council will vote on the California Northstate University Medical Campus and Innovation Park Planned Unit Development at the former Sleep Train Arena.
If approved, the groundwork for future development at Sleep Train Arena will be approved for zoning and design guidelines as the first phase of the medical campus.
Vice Mayor Angelique Ashby, in coordination with the Sacramento Kings, said she hopes that the hospital, innovation park and medical campus would create thousands of jobs and new housing.
At 183 acres, the planned CNU Medical Center Campus would include a college campus and various supporting services such as commercial and retail uses, medical offices, a childcare center and a care facility for active seniors.
Ashby said the city had an economic analysis done that said the region needed a hospital.
"It's a big deal, because we know we need additional health care services. If we've learned nothing in the last two years, we have at least learned that having access to quality health care is critically important. We know we need to train the next generation of doctors... Having a teaching hospital is really an incredible opportunity for the whole 3 million person region, not just the immediate neighborhood," Ashby said.
She says it all translates to a higher quality of life for people due to high wage jobs, access to health care, and access to higher education.
The hospital has had a long journey itself over the years. It was originally slated for Elk Grove but was ultimately shunned. The Elk Grove Planning Commission voted against the project back in February of 2021. Neighbors in the Stone Lake Community had fought to stop the new hospital from being built near them.
However, Ashby doesn't expect that to be the case in Sacramento.
"This is a former arena site; it's actually the one time you might see a hospital come in and be a reduced use... It's a reduction in use for this community, which gives us the real opportunity to provide something that is a good and and needed entity for everyone, people of Elk Grove will benefit from it being here to just like we would have benefited from it being there," she said.
The hospital will be built over the next eight to 10 years, but Ashby says it'll still be providing benefits to the city in the meantime.
"First, there'll be 1,500 construction jobs, and then there'll be 5,000 permanent ongoing jobs, and the economic impact of the total project over the first decade is $12 billion. So you're talking about a major investment in the Sacramento region," Ashby said.
Tuesday is all about the administrative step of changing the zoning for hospital use. In other words, if the vote goes through, CNU will be able to move forward with actually building the hospital. She said the vote will eventually be followed by the Sacramento Kings demolishing the old arena within the next six months and, afterward, hospital construction begins.
“The creation of this innovation hub will be a tremendous asset to the community, and we are excited to see this project come to fruition,” Sacramento Kings Chief Operating Officer Matina Kolokotronis said. “The redevelopment of this site will serve as an economic driver for our region.”
Kevin Ferreira, Executive Director Sacramento-Sierra Building & Construction Trades Council said this is an example of community partners working together, moving the city forward.
“As the President and CEO of California Northstate University, I am honored and humbled to have this opportunity to build both the health sciences university and the teaching hospital to serve the Natomas Community, the Greater Sacramento Region and beyond,” Dr. Alvin Cheung said.
On Jan. 19th at a Natomas Unified School Board meeting, the board voted to approve the purchase of 12 acres of land that is located on portions of the old Arco Arena grounds.
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