Project Feature: McGrath Outpatient Pavilion at UC San Diego Health

Project Summary

Location: San Diego, CA (Hillcrest Medical Campus)

Dates of Service: 2021 - Current

Services Performed: LEED for Healthcare Cx, Title-24 Commissioning, OSHPD/HCAi Cx, Monitoring-Based Commissioning (MBCx)

Number of Buildings: 1 (Phase 1 of the Hillcrest Medical Campus Redevelopment)

Square Feet: ~250,000 SF, six floors

Systems Commissioned: MEP Systems, Central Utility Plant, Low Voltage, BMS, Imaging and Radiation Therapy Support Systems

Space Types: Ambulatory Surgery, Operating Rooms, Infusion, Imaging, Radiation Oncology, Specialty Clinics

A New Front Door for Specialty Care at Hillcrest

The McGrath Outpatient Pavilion is the first major building in UC San Diego Health's redevelopment of its 62-acre Hillcrest campus. The six-floor, roughly 250,000 square foot facility opened in July 2025 and brings a wide range of specialty care under one roof. It houses ambulatory surgery suites, operating rooms, endoscopy procedure rooms, advanced imaging, an infusion center, and radiation oncology, including a new linear accelerator (LINAC) and brachytherapy. GMC Cx is proud to serve as the commissioning authority on this landmark project.

The pavilion is part of Phase 1 of the campus redevelopment, a multi-billion dollar program that also delivered a new central utility plant and a 1,850-space parking structure with an underground connection to the building. The work sat on a tight, active hospital campus next to the Emergency Department, which raised the bar for coordination, sequencing, and system reliability.

What Commissioning Meant on This Project

A healthcare facility like McGrath cannot simply turn on and hope for the best. Operating rooms, infusion bays, and imaging suites depend on tight control of temperature, humidity, pressure, and air quality. GMC Cx worked to confirm that these systems perform the way the design intended, not just at startup but under the day-to-day conditions the staff and patients will actually see.

Our scope covered the building's mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, the central utility plant serving the campus, low-voltage systems, and the building management system (BMS). We were involved early, reviewing MEP design, control sequences, and equipment selection to catch issues before they reached the field. During construction and startup we verified installation, ran functional performance tests, and tracked every issue to closure so the project team had clear visibility into what was ready and what still needed work.

Because McGrath supports surgery, cancer treatment, and advanced imaging, we paid close attention to the systems that protect patient safety and keep care running. That included emergency power, room pressurization, and the controls that hold critical environments within range. Functional testing confirmed these systems respond correctly, including under failure conditions.

Monitoring-Based Commissioning with SkySpark

Traditional commissioning ends when the building is turned over. Monitoring-Based Commissioning (MBCx) keeps going. On McGrath, GMC Cx uses our SkySpark analytics platform to watch how the building actually performs over time, turning the BMS data stream into something the operations team can act on.

Trending. SkySpark continuously collects and stores data from across the building, so performance can be reviewed across days, weeks, and seasons rather than from a single snapshot. Trends make it easy to see whether equipment is holding setpoints, where energy is going, and how systems behave as occupancy and weather change.

Fault Detection. Built-in analytics rules run against the live data and flag problems automatically. Things like simultaneous heating and cooling, valves stuck open, sensors drifting out of calibration, or equipment short cycling get surfaced early, often before anyone in the building would notice. This shifts the team from reacting to comfort complaints toward fixing root causes.

Troubleshooting. When a fault shows up, SkySpark gives our engineers the data to find the cause quickly. Instead of chasing a problem by hand in the field, we can pull the relevant trends, confirm what the system is doing, and point the operations staff to the specific equipment and sequence that needs attention. The result is faster fixes, less wasted energy, and systems that keep performing well long after turnover.

Why It Matters

McGrath is a high-stakes building serving patients across the San Diego region. GMC Cx was selected for our technical depth and our track record on medical, laboratory, and public-sector projects in the area. By pairing thorough commissioning with ongoing MBCx, we help make sure the pavilion's systems are reliable on opening day and stay that way as the building

serves the community for years to come.