Lennar Foundation’s $50M gift advances City of Hope Orange County cancer center plan
City of Hope received a $50 million gift from Lennar Foundation that will advance the health care organization’s plan to develop and operate a comprehensive cancer center in Irvine, California.
The donation from the charitable arm of Lennar Corporation — a home construction and real estate company — will help establish the Lennar Foundation Cancer Center at City of Hope Orange County. The 190,000-square-foot facility will open in 2022.
“We are humbled by the magnitude of the gift, but we now have an obligation to deliver — not only by creating a cancer center to support the population of patients who deserve it so much, but to use this platform to magnify, amplify and transform the way we deliver care, clinical trials and other aspects of precision medicine,” Edward S. Kim, MD, MBA, FACP, FASCO, physician-in-chief for City of Hope Orange County and a HemOnc Today Editorial Board Member, told Healio. “This truly demonstrates the goals shared by both organizations to bring the very best in health care, research, specialty services, cutting-edge technology and innovative partnerships to Orange County.”
The gift — the largest single philanthropic contribution to City of Hope Orange County — will help create a cancer campus that will position health care as a focal point for Orange County, according to Stuart Miller, executive chairman of Lennar Corporation.
“At Lennar, we are committed to building thriving communities, and we are pleased to support City of Hope to help build the future of cancer care,” Miller said in a press release. “Together, we are building a state-of-the art center for advanced cancer care and research that will make a difference in the lives of so many by turning science into practice and hope into reality.”
Approximately 3.2 million people live in Orange County. About 20% of residents diagnosed with cancer seek specialized treatment outside of the county, and many travel up to 2 hours away to City of Hope’s main campus in Duarte.
Last year, City of Hope outlined plans to invest $1 billion to expand cancer care services into Orange County.
The Lennar Foundation Cancer Center at City of Hope Orange County, under construction on an 11-acre site within Five Point’s Great Park in Irvine, is one component.
A hospital dedicated to treating and curing people with cancer — the only one of its type in Orange County — will open in Irvine in 2025. Plans also call for a network of several clinical sites, the first of which opened in January 2020 in Newport Beach.
The cancer campus and care network will greatly expand access to novel treatments, clinical trials, cancer prevention services and supportive care, Kim said.
“The first goal is to deliver the promise of leading-edge care to Orange County residents, not just through the cancer center campus but by what we’re doing with our regional locations to make sure our services are readily available,” Kim said. “To bring City of Hope’s long history of expertise and clinical excellence to a new area is a huge feat, but that is the mission.”
Another key element is maximizing partnerships that can help ensure delivery of specialized services and collaborative research, Kim said.
“We want to keep an open mind and maximize how we can utilize the skills and expertise of our neighbors in innovative health care technology, service delivery and customer satisfaction,” Kim added. “We can’t change a person’s diagnosis, but maybe we can change everything else someone doesn’t like about health care and having to go to a doctor. That’s why we’re approaching this expansion in an open-minded way that allows us to engage with people and deliver the quality expertise people want.”
Lennar has a long history of supporting City of Hope, according to Robert W. Stone, City of Hope’s president and CEO.
“This is the start — and it is a monumental start — to show the nation that our work in Orange County will catalyze incredible achievements in health care,” Stone said in the release. “With this gift, we will achieve the nexus of unsurpassed medical expertise, future-focused communities, groundbreaking technology and innovation, all for the single purpose of saving lives. This partnership supports a system of care delivery that provides state-of-the-art treatments, the latest scientific and medical discoveries, and unprecedented access that will serve as a model across the country.”