Akron Children's Launches $200M Expansion

Akron Children’s Hospital is launching a $200 million expansion of its Akron, Ohio, campus. The “Building on the Promise" expansion project is the result of significant growth in the hospital’s patient volumes and services.

The companies assisting Akron Children’s with project management include: the Boldt Company, of Appleton, Wisconsin; Hasenstab Architects, Inc., of Akron; KLMK Group, of Richmond, Virginia; HKS, Inc., of Dallas, Texas; and the Welty Building Company, of Akron.

The centerpiece of the plan, a critical care tower, will include:

• A new neonatal intensive care unit with individual rooms. The current Level III NICU treats the highest level of premature and critically ill newborns but has outgrown its space.
• A new emergency department with enough room to meet current and future patient volumes. Annual visits of more than 60,000 strain the hospital’s resources in a facility built to accommodate 44,000.
• Dedicated outpatient surgical suites to accommodate a more than doubling of outpatient procedures in the past 20 years.
• Dedicated space for several of the hospital’s pediatric subspecialty programs. The hospital’s medical staff has grown 72 percent since 1991. 

 In addition, the plan calls for:

•  Expanding the Ronald McDonald House of Akron to accommodate the hospital’s growth.
•  A new six-level, 1,200-space parking deck, already under construction.
•  A new “front door” for the hospital—a child-focused patient and visitor welcome center that will streamline access to the campus.

Construction will begin in the spring of 2013 and will be completed in 2015.