RICHMOND, VA - Just a year after opening a massive expansion of its downtown pediatric hospital, VCU Health is already looking to expand the facility’s capacity.
The health system is planning to add roughly 40 more inpatient beds to The Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU at 1000 E. Broad St.
VCU Health Interim CEO Marlon Levy, MD, MBA confirmed the project in a recent interview, saying it is expected to be completed within the next two years.
Levy said the expansion and other new facilities come in response to demand for services the hospital has seen since it was opened to patients.
“(There are) more surgeries, more ER visits, more hospitalizations, more outpatient visits. Every metric one could possibly look to that addresses the question, ‘Are we serving more kids and their families,’ the answer is yes,” Levy said.
When the health system completed its Children’s Tower, a 16-story, 72-bed addition last year, it set aside 144,000 square feet of shell space to be used in the future. The new beds will occupy 58,000 square feet across two of those unfinished floors.
Also teed up to fill in existing shell space is a cardiac catheterization and electrophysiology lab slated to open this summer.
In the fall, VCU Health plans to open a kids activity space called the Teammates for Kids Child Life Zone. In that space, patients will be able to do art projects, create music, watch movies and do other activities. The nonprofit foundation behind the concept was founded by country musician Garth Brooks and there are more than a dozen other similar play zones in pediatric hospitals across the U.S.
“We’re looking for ways to fill (shell space) in,” Levy said. “We reached the point we’re ready for that, probably we were ready for that soon after we opened.”
The total anticipated cost of the three projects is around $75 million, according to a health system spokeswoman.
The beds expansion is planned to consist of surgical beds as well as neonatal intensive care unit bassinets. The surgical beds are subject to regulatory approval through the state’s certificate of public need program (COPN). The lab and neonatal beds slated to be added to the Children’s Tower are already approved, the spokeswoman said.
There would still be remaining shell space after the new beds, lab and kids activity space are completed. The building is also engineered to allow the construction of an additional two more stories when needed, but there aren’t immediate plans to do so.
“At some point, we’ll bring in a crane and raise the roof,” Levy said.
The Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU marked the completion of the $420 million Children’s Tower a little more than a year ago. It was added onto the Children’s Pavilion, an inpatient facility that was completed on the same city block in 2016. Together the two facilities make up the pediatric hospital.
For more, click on the link below.
#escrowcredirt #newmarktitleservices
