Groundbreaking ceremony at new Kaiser medical building in Fresno

FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Kaiser Permanente in Fresno is expanding. By October 2025, what’s now a dirt lot near Herndon Avenue and First Street, will be the new Kaiser Permanente Orchard Plaza medical office building.

The 146,000 square foot and four-story medical office is set to house everything from primary care and family medicine to more specialized radiology and oncology services.

Doctor and physician-in-chief Shahzad Jahromi said this step is huge for patients in Fresno.

“Yes, we are short on space right now so we will be expanding our services, second thing is our population is growing and our membership in Fresno at Kaiser Permanente is growing,” Dr. Jahromi said.

Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear, that the city needed more medical services.

“We were overrun; I think we can all agree at that time. And another thing we found was the need for access, and this facility is going to be able to provide that,” Dyer said.

Workers are already getting started on the construction. Kaiser said in one week, they’ll start pouring concrete. In 5 weeks, they said they’ll start laying down steel.

Dr. Jahromi said another benefit to the city is that it will help them attract more medical talent to Fresno.

“We have such a hard time recruiting physicians to this location, so this building is going to be amazing to recruit physicians to come and see the state-of-the-art building coming in,” he added.

Mayor Dyer said another aspect this new building will help with is the aging population in Fresno. Dyer said it’s key they have medical buildings across all of Fresno, so people don’t have to travel across town for care.

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