The Daily Dig:
UC Davis Health topped out the 14-story California Tower on February 6, a major structural milestone for the new inpatient facility going up at 45th and X streets in Sacramento. McCarthy Building Companies served as general contractor, and the team held a beam signing ceremony with campus leadership before the final piece of steel went up. Erection started in May 2025, and the project hasn't recorded a single safety incident since breaking ground in 2024.
The $3.7 billion expansion adds roughly 1 million square feet to the UC Davis Health campus, including a five-story pavilion, new ORs, an imaging center, expanded pharmacy and burn care space, and about 334 inpatient beds. The tower opens in 2030 as the last piece of UC Davis Health's Vision 2030 campus plan. The build is also structured around California's 2030 seismic safety mandates for hospitals, replacing older infrastructure that can no longer meet state requirements while pushing clinical capacity well beyond what the current campus can handle.
Project Snapshot:
Owner: UC Davis Health
Program: Vision 2030 Campus Expansion
Project Value: $3.7 billion
Expansion Size: 1 million SQFT
Building Scope: 14-story hospital tower + 5-story pavilion
Added Capacity: 334 inpatient beds
Clinical Additions: Operating rooms, imaging center, pharmacy facilities, burn care units
Regulatory Driver: California 2030 hospital seismic compliance requirements (SB 1953)
Campus Growth: 3.6M SF to 7M+ SQFT by 2030
General Contractor: McCarthy Building Companies Inc.
Construction Manager: Cambridge CM
Design Partners: SmithGroup; Degenkolb Engineers
Key Trade Partners: Schuff Steel; Pacific Erectors, Inc.; Conco Concrete Reinforcement; Olson & Co. Steel, Inc.; Maxim Crane Works
Location: 45th and X streets, Sacramento, CA
Groundbreaking: 2024
Structural Steel Start: May 2025
Topping Out: February 6
Target Opening: 2030
Safety Record: Zero incidents since groundbreaking
TheJobWalk Thoughts:
The beam signing photos are nice, but the hard work is still ahead. This is a compliance driven build tied to California's SB 1953 seismic deadline, and that shapes everything from inspection cycles to closeout documentation. The existing East Wing gets demolished once the tower opens, so there's no fallback position on schedule. Hospital inspectors don't have a lot of patience for loose ends, and a project this size will have a commissioning process to match. A million square feet of acute care space with specialty clinical programs including surgery, imaging, and burn care means MEP and healthcare trades stay loaded well past topping out. For California contractors already working in healthcare, seismic driven hospital replacement is a defined pipeline with hard state imposed deadlines. The work is there. If you're not already in front of the right owners and CMs, someone else is having those conversations right now.
Courtesy of UC Davis Health
Courtesy of UC Davis Health
Courtesy of UC Davis Health
Courtesy of UC Davis Health
