UCSF Set to Launch New Long Range Development Plan

Since construction began in 1999, UCSF Mission Bay has bloomed into a vibrant campus with seven research buildings, a community center, student housing, plaza with eateries, parking facilities and 3.2-acre landscaped open space featuring public art. The University also is building a 289-bed hospital complex for children, women and cancer patients that will open in 2015.

For the first time since 1997, UCSF is embarking on a new long-range development plan. The goal is to guide the University’s physical development through the year 2035, to support its long-term goals of providing excellence in patient care, innovative science and health sciences education.

A critical component of the planning process is gaining feedback from San Francisco’s diverse neighborhoods. The University will begin convening a series of community meetings this month to discuss various opportunities, issues and proposals for each of its campus locations.

Those meetings, which begin Wednesday, Oct. 10, for neighbors at Parnassus Heights and Thursday, Oct. 25, for Mission Bay, will enable the community to weigh in on UCSF’s options well before the University publishes its draft plan in 2014. Ultimately, UCSF expects to submit the plan to the UC Board of Regents, which requires such plans from all UC campuses, for consideration in late 2014.

“Over the past few decades, we have worked closely with the community early in the plan to get their input, so they have a meaningful role in providing their thoughts and comments,” said Lori Yamauchi, assistant vice chancellor for Campus Planning at UCSF. “By starting the community workshops now, there's sufficient time to hear from the community and incorporate their input into our plans.”

The new plan will build upon the success of the previous, 1996 Long-Range Development Plan (LRDP), which has governed UCSF’s growth since the Regents approved it in January 1997.

Since then, UCSF has nearly doubled the size of its physical plant with the creation of a campus at Mission Bay, conducted substantial renovations at its Parnassus and Mount Zion campuses, built the Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration Medicine building on Parnassus and the comprehensive cancer center, research building and Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Mount Zion. The University also addressed new state seismic laws that necessitated the construction of UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, which is scheduled to open in 2015.

Fueling the need for expansion included the fact that funding for UCSF’s research enterprise tripled during that time — from $382.8 million in funding in 1998 to $1,064.6 million last year, further driving investigations into such diseases as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and neurological disease.

Planning for the Future

While the University’s growth is projected to slow considerably over the next two decades, in part due to the flattening trends in national research funding, UCSF is still expecting to see broad changes in the years to come, Yamauchi said.

Campus Planning has been working to define the University’s future space needs for nearly two years, gathering information from UCSF schools, departments and other campus units.

In the past year, the team identified exactly which space needs to focus on by working closely with faculty co-chairs and an oversight committee led by Kathleen Giacomini, PhD, in the School of Pharmacy, and Peter Carroll, MD, in the School of Medicine. Going forward, Bruce Wintroub, MD, will step in to co-chair that committee with Giacomini.

Among the projects that will come online in the short term are the new Global Health Sciences and clinical faculty building, and the three new specialty hospitals at Mission Bay.

UCSF has decided to maintain Parnassus as the home for professional education, while graduate education is gradually shifting to Mission Bay, where many of the PhD programs — especially those in the basic sciences — already are located. As it moves forward with a new building at Mission Bay, more of the graduate programs such as Global Health and Epidemiology will be located at that campus.

The University has further defined its plans on seismic replacements or retrofits across three campuses: Parnassus, where four buildings are seismically compromised; Mount Zion, where the Hellman Building has been slated for demolition; and, through its affiliation with the city, the San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, where UCSF faculty and staff occupy several seismically compromised buildings owned by the city.

The new plan will not include Phase II of the UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, which would add 261 more beds; this step will be considered under a subsequent LRDP.

The next step, in collaboration with the community, will help develop needs and solutions into a long-term plan.

Barbara Bagot-Lopez, director of community relations at UCSF, said the University’s Community Advisory Group (CAG) has been closely involved in the new long-range plan, and will play a central role in helping UCSF develop the goals and objectives that guide the new plan into the future. The new meetings will take those discussions beyond the most active CAG members to all interested neighbors.

“Time and again, we see that community feedback results in better projects,” Bagot-Lopez said. “The design of our new UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay is a vivid example of public involvement in our planning resulting in a win-win situation for UCSF and our neighbors.”

UCSF will host community meetings at each of the campus sites, with multiple opportunities for feedback for neighbors at campuses such as Parnassus, where more complex decisions will have to be made. Those meetings will continue through spring 2013.

Learning from History

The new LRDP will benefit from the last plan’s success in creating a roadmap with the flexibility to adjust to unknown challenges or opportunities. In 1996, UCSF was so cramped in its facilities at Parnassus that much of the plan was focused on finding new space, with three potential sites: Mission Bay, Alameda or Brisbane.

With the number of variables involved, the university created a plan that would be highly flexible, with an overarching structure that would govern change as it arose, according to Kevin Beauchamp, director of physical planning. The result was a plan that was amended three times, each guided by a community — and Regent-approval process that was clearly laid out in advance.

“We knew we needed to expand, so the primary function of the plan was to look at where and how, and to create a systematic approach to adjusting the plan, as needed,” said Beauchamp. “We've really done a lot, not just in building projects, but also other enhancements.”

In 2002, at the urging of the CAG, the plan was amended to include housing at Mission Bay, and in 2005 it was amended again to update the clinical strategy to include major inpatient facilities there — the new hospitals — as well as transform Mount Zion into a robust outpatient hub. Finally in 2008, the Regents approved a third amendment to add land acquired for the new Mission Bay hospitals and incorporate planning principles to guide development at Mission Bay.

At that time, the city was working on a massive rezoning of the industrial and commercial areas near Mission Bay, Yamauchi added, so UCSF’s neighbors wanted the University to work with the city to coordinate where the development would proceed and which areas would be protected, such as the historic section of Dogpatch.

Since construction began in 1999, UCSF Mission Bay has bloomed into a vibrant campus with seven research buildings, a community center, student housing, plaza with eateries, parking facilities and 3.2-acre landscaped open space featuring public art. The University also acquired 14 acres south of the original campus, where the 289-bed hospital complex for children, women and cancer patients is now under construction.

For more information, visit the LRDP website.

To receive notices of future meetings, please email [email protected], specifying the campus site(s) of interest: Parnassus, Mission Bay, Laurel Heights, Mount Zion or San Francisco General Hospital.

Related Links:

UCSF Begins Long-Range Planning About its Future Through to 2030