Dive Brief:

• In an email to employees, Peter Slavin, president of Massachusetts General Hospital, announced a $1 billion expansion of its Boston campus, the Boston Business Journal reported.
• The hospital will construct a 1-million-square-foot, 12-story building that will provide 450 new beds on the top six floors of two parallel towers. The building will also include space for cancer and heart centers, operating and exam rooms, imaging facilities, clinical support, underground parking, ground-level retail and a cafe. A second, new seven-story structure will house campus services. Construction of both buildings will require some demolition of some existing structures. 
• Slavin said the expansion will free up space in Mass General’s existing buildings and allow the hospital to add new patient services, such as a substance use disorder program and pediatric behavioral health inpatient unit. The hospital is still seeking donors to support the expansion.

Dive Insight:

This is the second $1 billion expansion for a Boston hospital announced in the last few years. The $1.2 billion Boston Children’s Hospital expansion, which is underway now, had to overcome opposition from some groups that were concerned that the capital project would drive up the costs of services at the hospital and that also objected to the demolition of an existing garden used by patients and their families. Suffolk Construction is the construction manager for the project, which includes a new 565,000-square-foot, 11-story building with 71 new beds; a cardiovascular program; a neonatal intensive care unit; laboratory, pharmacy and dietary services; and a rooftop garden.

A 2018 Health Facilities Management survey indicated that renovations, rather than new construction, are a continuing hospital trend, as well as the construction of more outpatient than inpatient facilities. For instance, New York City Health and Hospitals/Coney Island hospital is underway with a $738 million renovation and expansion in Brooklyn. Turner Construction is overseeing the project, according to the Brooklyn Paper. As of the end of December, crews were laying the foundation for a 4-foot flood wall and a new 10-story structure. 

The attention to resiliency, like at the Coney Island facility, is another trend that HFM identified in its 2018 report. Hospitals in hurricane and flood zones, like the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, are moving generators to upper floors, installing storm gates and watertight windows with wind-resistant glass, creating watertight compartments within buildings and, like Coney Island, building flood walls around campus structures.

Almost 90% of the 274 hospitals that took part in the HFM survey said they are now considering resiliency measures when planning renovations or new construction.