HOSPITAL REACHES MILESTONE SIMI VALLEY FACILITY ABOUT TO GET BIGGER AND BETTER FOR AREA.

Byline: Eric Leach Staff Writer

SIMI VALLEY - Civic leaders gathered at Simi Valley Hospital this past week for a ``topping off'' ceremony placing one of the last beams on the four-story, $35 million, 146,000-square-foot Patient Care Tower project.

``This is really spectacular, really exciting,'' said Leigh Nixon, president of the Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce and a member of the board of directors for the hospital after a 200-foot crane hoisted the beam to the top of the building.

Chamber officials joined physicians, hospital employees and members of the City Council on Thursday in signing the steel beam before it was placed atop the addition to the hospital, which is celebrating it's 40th anniversary this year.

``We've waited a long time for this. We're all looking forward to having a new hospital here,'' said Jonathan Kurohara, chief of staff at the hospital. ``We're going to begin a whole new level of care for a great community.''

Margaret R. Peterson, president and chief executive officer of the hospital, called the ceremony a milestone and said she looked forward to dedicating the completed project in about a year.

``We expect in about 12 months we will be able to occupy the building. It will provide expanded services to the community. It will be state of the art.''

Topping off ceremonies date back to 1898 in Norway and were introduced to the United States by Scandinavian construction workers. The ceremony acknowledged the safe and successful attainment of the highest point of construction.

The tower, being built by Turner Construction Inc., will house a neonatal intensive care unit, a neurosurgery unit, and a cardiology diagnostic department.

Greg Stratton, a former mayor of Simi Valley, was one of those who originally called for the expansion project as a member of the hospital's board of directors.

He said the $35 million project represented a big investment, but one that was needed.

``Simi Valley is a growing community and this expansion is absolutely necessary,'' he said. ``The community needs to support this hospital.''

The hospital was established 40 years ago by country doctor John Owsley Jones, when the Simi Valley community had about 8,000 residents.

Jones donated some of the land on which the hospital currently stands, and his brother Harold still lives on a hill above the hospital with his wife, Ethel, who was a nurse when the facility first opened.

Ethel Jones said she worked at the new hospital on the first day it opened, helping deliver a baby, and said the community of around 130,000 people now needed to have its medical services expanded.

``There's a lot of people here today,'' she said.

Eric Leach, [phone]

eric.leach(at)dailynews.com

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3 photos

Photo:

(1) A model shows what the new, four-story, 146,000-square-foot Patient Care Tower will look like when it's finished in about a year.

(2 -- 3) Above, the last structural beam to be placed includes signatures of some of the people who worked on the project. Below, Simi Valley Hospital President Margaret R. Peterson walks past the project.

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News