Tiantan Hospital to move to Fengtai in 2017

Tiantan Hospital, a top-level hospital in downtown Beijing, is to be moved to the southwestern suburb of Fengtai district in 2017, officials said on Thursday.

The hospital is located inside the outer wall of Tiantan, the Temple of Heaven, a park where emperors held sacrifices during Ming and Qing dynasties.

Zhao Lei, deputy director of the Beijing Commission of Development and Reform, said moving the hospital from the Temple of Heaven will better protect the historic site.

The move will also help relieve pressure in urban Beijing and better allocate the city's medical resources, as most top-level hospitals in Beijing are concentrated downtown, he said.

"Within the radius of five kilometers from Tiantan Hospital are many hospitals, including Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Tongren Hospital, Friendship Hospital and Xuanwu Hospital," he said. "Moving Tiantan Hospital will help allocate quality medical resources to Fengtai district, and not as many people will have to swarm to hospitals downtown."

The new site of Tiantan Hospital will cover an area of 352,000 square meters, nearly four times the area of the present hospital. Construction is expected to finish by the end of 2017, for an estimated cost of 3.66 billion yuan ($603 million).