This article has been revised and corrected from the original version.

Beverly Grove-based orthopedic and spinal surgery provider Docs Health Inc. broke ground on a $123 million surgical hospital in the Mid-Wilshire district.

The five-story, 58,000-square-foot hospital building at 6800 San Vicente Blvd. replaces an 8,500-square-foot hospital building that Docs Health purchased in 2019. The new hospital, which is expected to be completed in 2026, supplements the company’s original spinal and orthopedic surgery center at its Beverly Grove headquarters.

Concord-based Swinerton Inc. is the main construction contractor for the new surgical hospital. Swinerton has worked on some other hospital projects in Los Angeles County, including the High Desert Health System in Lancaster, as well as several local outpatient and medical office buildings.

The new surgical hospital represents a slight twist on the decades-long trend toward ambulatory surgery centers that primarily function on an outpatient basis. These centers have sprung up as a cheaper, more-focused alternative to community and regional hospitals. Patients go in, get some imaging done and then have their surgical procedures; after a brief recovery, the patients either go home or to a rehabilitation facility.

Now, more of these surgery centers are putting back in some of the features of full-service hospitals, including multiple suites for operations, a full array of imaging technologies and longer-term patient recovery rooms. But, there’s a specialty-care focus for all of these features – in Docs Health’s case, spine and orthopedic surgery. That means there won’t be patients seeking care for heart conditions, cancer, childbirth and all the other treatments provided by full-service hospitals.

“This is the first specialty surgical hospital in Los Angeles to focus on spine and orthopedic surgery,” said Khawar Siddique, co-chief executive of Docs Health. “Specialty hospitals have numerous advantages over general hospitals, including cheaper cost of care and higher quality.”

Docs Health was founded in 2005 as a spine and orthopedic surgery practice; many of its major investors are physicians. For years its only facility was on Third Street, just east of the Beverly Center.

“We outgrew our current space and hence needed to build a new, state-of-the-art specialty hospital,” Siddique said. “By doing so, we will dramatically improve our reach.”

The company bought a building at 6800 San Vicente Blvd. in 2019 with immediate plans to tear it down and build a much larger facility. It has taken three-plus years to get all the permits and complete the design and pre-construction work. The groundbreaking took place on Oct. 30.

Siddique said the $123 million cost for the building includes actual construction, “soft costs” (such as design work) and equipment. He added that Docs Health has obtained a construction loan to finance the project.

One of the major cost drivers, he said, was making sure the building complies with all earthquake code requirements, including a provision that by 2030 all hospitals in the state have the ability to continue functioning during and after a major quake.

When completed, the building will house four operating theaters with the latest in surgical technologies, including robotic surgery, and special clean suites with high-quality ventilation. It will also have a full array of imaging technologies, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) scans and x-rays.

The surgical hospital will also include 17 inpatient suites and a rooftop healing garden.