As construction of the new St. Paul’s Hospital gets under way, Archbishop J. Michael Miller paid a visit to the site, a day after sending a virtual blessing for healing and peace.

The archbishop inspected the site March 16 along with St. Paul’s Foundation president and CEO Dick Vollet and Providence Health Care president and CEO Fiona Dalton.

“Right now, this site is just an 18-acre parking lot,” said Vollet during a virtual ceremony with donors and supporters March 15. “By 2026, it will be a campus about the size of eight city blocks entirely devoted to health care, life sciences, research, and technology.”

Archbishop Miller offered a blessing on the site of the future hospital, which is expected to open in 2027.

“I would like to offer this blessing, in the name of Jesus Christ who came into this world bringing healing and the promise of peace to all who are suffering,” he said.

“I wish to bless both the ground and the people advancing the rich promise of the new St. Paul’s Hospital at the Jim Pattison Medical Centre. May all those working tirelessly on this project recognize not only in their efforts but also in themselves what St. Paul’s Hospital has always taught us, that we are called to serve and called to heal through care, research, and education. May each of you see the goodness that you bring to this noble and worthy endeavor of the new St. Paul’s Hospital.”

The Sisters of Providence built the first St. Paul’s hospital, a 25-bed compassionate care hospital, nearly 127 years ago. The building was expanded to accommodate for more patients and needs and over the years St. Paul’s gained international renown for innovation and research on that site. It is the only place in B.C. that performs adult heart transplants.

Plans have been in the works to replace the aging hospital on Burrard Street with a bigger and more modern and purpose-built structure for about the last two decades. The new hospital is expected to be roughly twice the size of the old one when it is built at 1002 Station Street.

The future St. Paul’s Hospital. 

Jim Pattison made a historic donation of $75 million to the project in 2017, and other donors and philanthropists have also come on board (Vollet offered special thanks to Hugh Magee and Bob Lee, as well as to a few families and foundations that have donated $5 million each).

Currently St. Paul’s Foundation is closing in on a $225 million goal for the new St. Paul’s Hospital. But it won’t be the only building on the site. The foundation’s next goal is to raise $50 million for a Clinical Support and Research Centre. Other centres, such as an Indigenous Wellness Centre and a Centre for Healthy Aging, are also in the wings.

Earlier in the week, physicians at St. Paul’s Hospital announced they were donating $2.55 million toward the new hospital. Fundraising began in late 2019 when 14 radiologists decided to donate $1 million over the next four years.

Dr. Jamil Bashir, clinical professor and division head, cardiac surgery, in the faculty of medicine at the University of B.C., said the 13 heart surgeons operating at St. Paul’s are donating $300,000 to the new hospital.

“The new St. Paul’s is just the most exciting thing to happen to health care in B.C. for 30 to 40 years,” he said.

Bashir said his three children were born at St. Paul’s and his mother is now in the hospital’s geriatric ward.

“We aren’t just doctors who work here,” he said.

“We come here when we’re sick, our families come here when they’re sick. All of us feel the need to support it and turn into this great new shining beacon for the next century.”

Dr. Jim Kim said the department’s 50 anesthesiologists have donated $1.25 million.

The new hospital site is on Station Street on the False Creek Flats, about three kilometres east of the current hospital site on Burrard. Called St. Paul’s Hospital at the Jim Pattison Medical Centre, the project is described as the largest hospital redevelopment in the province’s history.

Health Minister Adrian Dix announced March 8 that construction is under way and that the government supports the “state-of-the-art facility” and the continuing legacy of St. Paul’s Hospital.

The B.C. government said the full cost of the health-care campus is $2.174 billion, of which the provincial government is investing $1.337 billion.

Below is a video offering a flythrough experience of the new hospital.