A groundbreaking celebration will be held Thursday for a new, approximately $20 million medical office building to be built on the campus of Loma Linda University Medical Center Murrieta.

The invitation only celebration will be held at 4 p.m. at the medical center campus, on the northwest corner of Antelope and Baxter Roads in Murrieta.

"We are very pleased to be breaking ground on this state-of-the-art medical office building that will be the base for our top-notch doctors here in southwest Riverside County," Bruce Christian, president and CEO of the medical center, said. "Between the new hospital and the new medical office building, this campus will play an important role in bringing quality healthcare to the community."

Frauenshuh HealthCare Real Estate Solutions, a Minneapolis-based development company, will build the Advertisement

[ Berry-Bell and Hall Mortuary ] project.

The new five-story medical office building will be located just east of the hospital building, which is now under construction and is nearing completion. It will offer about 160,000-square-feet of office space and accommodate about 60 physician offices. The new building is expected to open in the first quarter of 2011, in time for the opening of the new hospital.

Once it opens, the Murrieta health facility is expected to serve a fast-growing region encompassing the cities of Murrieta, Temecula, Lake Elsinore, Perris, Menifee, Wildomar, Hemet and surrounding communities

The campus is being developed by Loma Linda University Medical Center, one of the nation’s leading teaching and research medical centers, and the Physicians Group of Murrieta, LLC, a consortium of doctors from southwest Riverside County.