10-09-2013 03:22 PM

Exclusive: Dayton Children’s Hospital plans $140 million expansion


Dayton Children’s Hospital is planning a $140 million expansion that will include an eight-story, 260,000-square-foot patient care tower.





Dayton Children’s Hospital is planning a $140 million expansion to its facility near downtown.
The expansion will include:

  • an eight-story, 260,000-square-foot patient care tower;
  • a central utility plant; and
  • a data center.

It has an anticipated completion date of 2017.
The hospital’s board of trustees recently approved the plan, and has been informing employees today. In an e-mail to employees, Dayton Children’s CEO Debbie Feldman said the move follows nine months of planning with hospital staff, national hospital experts and FKP Architects.
A significant portion of the costs will be funded through philanthropic measures.
The expansion will take place in the middle of the hospital’s 1 Children’s Plaza campus near downtown. With the board’s approval, the hospital is in the design and planning phase for construction, with Danis Building Construction Co. leading the team of architects.
“As we looked at our services and future needs, it became clear that our current buildings and space were inadequate to meet rapid advances in medical technology and higher expectations for patient care,” Feldman said. “Today, our ability to support high-tech patient care is limited by floor-to-floor heights that are four feet below current industry recommendations for delivering modern health care.”
Feldman also said the move comes as 70 percent of the hospital’s facilities are 35 years old or older, or near their “clinical use of life.”
She added the square feet per bed is half that of similar hospitals nationwide, and that similar hospitals have individual rooms for patients.
Construction could begin on the utility plant in early 2014, and the patient tower later in 2014, according to Feldman’s e-mail.
Dayton Children’s is the seventh-largest hospital in the Dayton region with annual revenue of more than $315 million, according to DBJ research. It has 155 beds, 244 physicians and 1,500 total employees.



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