University of Pennsylvania unveils plan for $1.5B hospital complex

Dive Brief:

The University of Pennsylvania revealed plans Wednesday for a $1.5 billion, 1.5-million-square-foot medical pavilion on its Philadelphia campus. The pavilion will be the largest capital project ever for the university, according to Penn Medicine.
The 17-story hospital, which will be part of the Penn Medicine health system, will include 500 private rooms. The facility will also incorporate an inpatient care unit for heart and vascular patients, neurology and neurosurgery units, a cancer center and an emergency department.
Balfour Beatty and Philadelphia-area LF Driscoll have been selected as construction managers, with HDR, Foster + Partners and BR+A providing design and engineering services. The team expects construction to be complete in 2021.

Dive Insight:

This massive Penn project is just the latest in U.S. mega-medical developments either being developed, underway or recently completed.

Mortenson announced last week that it had completed the site selection and design for the first building in the Discovery Square portion of Mayo Clinic's $6 billion Destination Medical Center in Rochester, MN. According to Mortenson, the new 60,000-square-foot life science research building has been planned as a collaborative space that will achieve high energy efficiency.

Virtua Health System is also building a new $1 billion medical campus in Westampton, NJ. The new facility will have between 339 and 383 beds, inpatient and outpatient departments, an outpatient surgical center, an emergency department, a long-term care facility, an assisted living center, medical offices and women's and children's services. The project is expected to gain final approval from the state health commissioner in the next few months if it meets environmental standards imposed by the New Jersey Health Planning Board.

The 38th annual Modern Healthcare Construction & Design Survey, released in March, found that despite uncertainty at the federal level regarding healthcare legislation, the construction industry is still enthusiastic about the future of healthcare construction, especially when it comes to retail and outpatient clinics.