Hilo Benioff Medical Center Adds Clinic, Inpatient Buildings to Growing Campus

Fifty-five new inpatient beds and a suite of surgical specialties that Hawai'i Island patients have long traveled to O'ahu to access are coming to Hilo Benioff Medical Center's campus at 1285 Waiānuenue Avenue, funded by a $100 million public-private partnership split evenly between the State of Hawai'i and a philanthropic gift from Marc and Lynne Benioff.

The expansion is unfolding in two phases. Medical Office Building 3, a roughly 20,000-square-foot clinic structure with its facade and breezeway connections to the existing buildings already in place, is scheduled to open in June 2026. A larger 55,000-square-foot inpatient building under construction on the hospital's west side is expected to be completed in early 2027.

Medical Office Building 3 will be the first to deliver new services to patients. The building will house urgent care and specialty outpatient clinics covering general surgery, plastic surgery, vascular surgery, and neurology — disciplines that have been difficult to access without leaving the island. Its opening will also free up space in the existing East Hawai'i Health Clinics buildings for East Hawai'i Cancer Centers to expand room for staff and patients. When MOB 3 opens, the health system's total clinic footprint will reach approximately 50,000 square feet across three connected buildings, with 22 additional parking spaces added around the new structure.

The inpatient building will add the most consequential capacity. The three-story structure will place covered parking on the ground floor, a 19-bed intensive care unit on the second, and a 36-bed progressive care unit on the third. That progressive care floor is designed for patients who require hospitalization but are not in critical condition, a category that has historically strained Hilo Benioff's existing bed supply. The campus expansion also includes a planned 12-bed birthing center.

Elena Cabatu, the hospital's director of marketing, legislative and public affairs, framed the construction as an expression of the care already being delivered inside. "This expansion reflects what the quality of care is inside the building," Cabatu said. "The new ICU, the new patient beds, and the improvements to the building parallel the improvements we make to care. This is the hospital our community deserves."

The groundbreaking took place nearly two years ago, with Gov. Josh Green in attendance. Green, a physician who once worked on the Big Island, has championed the project as part of a broader effort to strengthen rural health infrastructure across the state.

Completion of the inpatient building in early 2027 carries particular urgency for East Hawai'i. With volcanic activity, tropical storms, and persistent specialty care shortfalls creating recurring stress on the island's health system, adding 55 critical and progressive care beds on-island could meaningfully reduce the costly transfers to O'ahu that have become routine for complex cases. How fully the new space delivers on that promise will depend largely on whether the hospital can recruit and retain the clinicians needed to staff it.