Project Balloons: It became a project that...

Project Balloons: It became a project that mushroomed at every turn.

First, Brea developer Don McBride wanted to replace a 33-year-old medical center near St. Jude Hospital in Fullerton with a new, state-of-the-art center. So he bought some land right behind the old center.

The new site would need parking. So McBride also bought land that the old building was on for a parking lot. But the medical center would need even more parking--plus, St. Jude could use some extra parking space. So he bought enough land for a four-level parking structure.

And while the center and parking structure were being built, the original center’s doctors and patients would need parking. So McBride bought the Del Rae restaurant across the street because of its large parking lot. He provided a shuttle bus to transport employees and patients to the center.

After about three years of planning, McBride’s endeavors are taking shape. The 355-slot parking structure was finished in February, and the new three-story, 70,000-square-foot Val Mesa Medical Building opened late last month. Demolition of the old center was completed this week.

“We moved 60 doctors from one building to another in one weekend, in the rain,” said McBride, president of McBride Development Co., which he founded 35 years ago. Sure, a few old-timers in the center balked at the change. “Some of them said, ‘We’ll move later,’ but they had no choice--we cut off utilities.”

The entire development cost about $18 million, he said.

McBride never meant to end up with a restaurant in the deal: “We didn’t have an alternative. The city of Fullerton said, ‘Find temporary parking,’ so we did.”