Mayor Gavin Newsom celebrated the planned rebuild of San Francisco General Hospital’s inpatient care facility at a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday.

“Now we are moving forward to strengthen General by building a new hospital that the entire city can be proud of for generations to come,” Newsom said in a statement.

Construction has started less than a year after 84 percent of San Francisco voters passed Proposition A authorizing city financing of the seismic safety rebuild, which is mandated by state law. The 448,000 square-foot building is scheduled to open in 2015.
 

Additional speakers at the event included Mitch Katz, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health; Sue Carlisle, associate dean at UCSF; Judy Guggenhime, president of the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation; and Ed Reiskin, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Works.