The long-awaited expansion of Providence Holy Cross Medical Center is ready for its first public peek Saturday afternoon, when the community is invited to visit the new construction area and see the new and improved facilities.

An open house will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday at the new facility, located at 15031 Rinaldi Street in Mission Hills. Bishop Gerald Wilkerson of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles will speak, as will Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, in whose district the hospital is located, along with several other City Council members and hospital officials.

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The new four-story, 138-bed physician-and-nurse designed patient care wing is scheduled to open in late spring or early summer. The environmentally friendly design, which includes ‘water bottle filling stations’ with every water fountain is just one of the improvements incorporated at the suggestions of neighbors and visitors to the hospital.

The new South Wing, one of the first “green” hospital buildings in California, includes the area’s first Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit for the most fragile infants, a new Women’s Pavilion, gastroenterology lab and additional operating rooms.

Providence Holy Cross operates one of the busiest private emergency departments and trauma centers in Los Angeles County, increasing the need for inpatient beds. The closure of several other Valley-area hospitals also resulted in a space shortage for patient care.

“Providence Holy Cross is nearly always at capacity and this new patient care wing gives us the room we need to expand services to our patients and their families,” said Larry Bowe, the Mission Hills hospital’s chief executive.

With the completion of the $180 million project, the award-winning Providence Holy Cross is among the largest hospitals in the area.

The expansion also brings about 370 new jobs, including 111 new nursing positions, to the northeast Valley. Jobs run the spectrum from engineering to plant operations.

Some of the softer new features – those that contribute to the ambiance and emotional comfort of patients and their families – include a chapel dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe and a Heritage Wall that recounts the history of Holy Cross, including how the hospital continued operations despite two major earthquakes and earned a reputation for excellence.

Of interest is that the new South Wing is build according to California’s most recent seismic safety guidelines and is expected to not only withstand a magnitude 8.0 earthquake, but to also remain operational to continue to treat existing patients as well as the injured.