Kaweah Delta Medical Center opened two parking lots last week. Image via Kaweah Delta

Kaweah Delta Medical Center opened two new parking lots last week, adding nearly 80 patient and visitor parking spots to the downtown Visalia campus.

The new parking lot is located just outside the hospital’s entrance on Acequia Avenue. A second lot, located on the corner of Acequia and West Street, is for physicians. These new lots have opened up parking spaces in the parking structures across from the center’s entrances at Locus Street and Acequia. Additionally, the hospital offers free valet parking to its patients and visitors at its entrance off Mineral King Avenue from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends.

“As we work hard to modernize, expand and improve our facilities, our parking spaces are at a premium,” said Gary Herbst, CEO of Kaweah Delta. “This is just one of the solutions that will help patients and visitors find parking closer to our medical center.”

When construction is complete this fall on the fifth and sixth floors of the Acequia Wing, 30 additional parking spots will open up in the lot west of the wing. Currently those spots are in use by construction equipment as Kaweah Delta increases the medical center’s inpatient bed capacity with the addition of a 24-bed intermediate critical care unit on the fifth floor. The sixth floor will provide the Visalia community with a new 23-bed neonatal intensive care unit that will offer patients private rooms.