AREA HOSPITAL TO ADD MORE MEDICAL OFFICES.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, marking its 25th anniversary this year, will break ground on a $7.5 million project to add medical office space, officials announced Tuesday.

Work will begin May 1 and be completed in 1999 on a two-story building with about 44,000 square feet of space for doctors' offices. Leases already have been signed for about half of the space. Parking lot contruction will begin April 1.

``This is a very sophisticated, educated community,'' said Duffy Watson, chief executive officer of Henry Mayo. ``They want the best, and I think, increasingly, there's a feeling that they shouldn't have to leave the Santa Clarita Valley to get it.''

The new building will house state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment, as for computerized axial tomography and magnetic resonance imaging.

In addition to equipment for CT scanning and MRIs, there will be a laboratory, a pharmacy and an urgent care facility, which hospital officials predict will become ``the premier outpatient health care facility in the Santa Clarita Valley.''

The new building will be owned by Landmark Healthcare Facilities, headquartered in Milwaukee, which recently paid $4.2 million to the Santa Clarita Valley Health Care Management Group - a for-profit subsidiary of the hospital's parent group, the Santa Clarita Health Care Association - to buy five medical office buildings, ranging from 18 to 20 years old, on the hospital grounds, said Joseph Checota, Landmark's chairman.

There is office space for two dozen doctors in the five buildings, which have 42,270 square feet in all, said hospital spokeswoman Janice Newbold.

Tenants of the new medical building will have a connection to Henry Mayo.

``Physicians who are permitted to occupy space in the building must qualify for membership on the medical staff at the hospital,'' Checota said. ``If they were to lose their privileges, then, in a reasonable period of time, they would have to find space elsewhere.''

The land for this project and future medical office buildings is still owned by Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, but has been leased to Landmark and Beverly Hills-based G&L Realty, Checota said. G&L specializes in the acquisition, development and management of health care-related properties.

``At the end of the 60-year ground lease, the buildings revert - at no additional cost - back to the hospital,'' Checota said. Because the hospital is leasing the land to Landmark and G&L, ``that gives the hospital approval and control over how (the land) is developed,'' he added. ``The buildings will always be used to meet the health care needs of the community.''

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Drawing

DRAWING: An artist's drawing shows medical offices, including an urgent-care facility, planned at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital grounds.