Beginning Monday, July 16, Kaweah Delta will take the next step in nearly doubling the size of its Emergency Department (ED) and waiting area to meet the needs of a growing community.
This phase of construction will result in changes to parking in and around the downtown Visalia medical center.
This phase involves new construction onto a portion of the hospital’s main parking lot off of Mineral King Avenue.
In order to proceed with construction, parking spaces in the hospital’s main parking lot will be reduced, however the lot will remain open for:
- Emergency department patients
- Labor and delivery patients
- 20-minute patient drop-off
During construction, hospital visitors are advised to either:
- Use Kaweah Delta’s free valet parking service, which is available from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends at the hospital’s main entrance off Mineral King Avenue. It is free, fast, convenient and cars are parked in secure, guarded areas.
- Park in one of the city’s two parking structures, which offer free all-day parking, directly to the east of the hospital on Willow Street and to the north of the hospital on Acequia Avenue.
In anticipation of construction, Kaweah Delta has worked with City of Visalia officials to increase all-day parking in the city’s parking structures.
Kaweah Delta is also exploring options to acquire properties around the downtown hospital in an effort to replace the permanent loss of parking that will result from expanding the ED.
The multi-phase project is expected to be complete in the Summer of 2020.
This important two-year project will modernize, expand and improve Kaweah Delta’s emergency medical facilities to help meet the needs of the growing community and better serve patients by nearly doubling patient beds, increasing the size of the ED waiting room, and incorporating a new “fast track” area that will allow patients to be more quickly screened.
Kaweah Delta’s ED was originally built to serve 72,000 patients a year, but today, more than 90,000 patients a year are seen there. For more information, visit www.kaweahdelta.org/more.