Kaiser plans 300-bed all-electric hospital across from Geary campus

A new 300-bed Kaiser hospital would rise across Geary Boulevard from the system’s long-standing San Francisco campus, adding capacity, a larger emergency room and all-electric infrastructure in one of the city’s most built-up health-care corridors.

The project would be Kaiser Permanente’s first new hospital in San Francisco in about 70 years. Kaiser’s first San Francisco hospital opened in 1948 on Potrero Hill, then moved to Geary Boulevard in 1954. The current Kaiser Foundation Hospital at 2425 Geary Boulevard is licensed for 239 beds, so the new facility would add roughly 61 beds if built as planned.

Reporting on the proposal said the building could reach about 14 stories and total roughly 623,000 square feet. Completion could come by 2033. Kaiser said the existing hospital at Geary and Divisadero would keep operating while construction moves ahead, which would allow the current emergency department and inpatient services to continue serving patients on the Geary corridor.

For patients, the most immediate change would be access. Kaiser said the new campus would bring an expanded emergency room, private inpatient rooms and modernized care space, all on a site close to the Anza Vista and Divisadero neighborhood edge. With Kaiser’s San Francisco medical center already spread across multiple campuses and outpatient sites in the city, the new hospital would become one of the most consequential health-care investments in San Francisco in decades.

The plan also folds into Kaiser’s climate strategy. In Northern California, the health system has said its new all-electric hospitals in San Jose and Sacramento will eliminate natural gas combustion, reduce air pollution and rely on renewable electricity. Those projects are slated to open in 2029, and Kaiser has said they will be among the state’s few all-electric hospitals. In San Francisco, the same approach would pair new beds with cleaner building systems, a combination that could advance both public health and climate goals if the project moves forward.

The site carries its own history. Kaiser’s Geary hospital stands on land that once held part of the old Calvary Cemetery area, and the system’s presence now dominates both sides of Geary Boulevard near Divisadero Street. A taller, larger hospital there would deepen that footprint, bringing more capacity to the city while also adding another major development to a corridor where neighbors already live with the constant pull of a large medical center.