Growth Spurs Bronson Plan For New Downtown Development

KALAMAZOO – Bronson Methodist Hospital has announced plans to invest $50 million in a campus expansion project that will create 49 more private patient rooms and about 150 new jobs on the downtown hospital’s campus by 2008.

The announcement comes after 18 months of evaluating options to accommodate the 34 percent inpatient growth Bronson has experienced – particularly in the areas of adult cardiac, orthopedic, neurological and surgical care ? since Bronson opened its new hospital facility in 2000.

The first step of the expansion project will be to develop the six-floor Center Building on Bronson’s North Campus between Walnut and Lovell streets into a patient care pavilion similar to the East and West Pavilions on the South Campus. Moving into the fourth, fifth and a portion of the third floor of the new North Pavilion will be the Bronson BirthPlace and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The Bronson BirthPlace will expand from 31 to 40 rooms allowing it to accommodate 4,000 obstetric patients per year as compared to 3,600 in 2004.

The NICU, which treated 678 infants last year, will convert from a 45-bed nursery design, with 85 square feet per infant, to all-private rooms of 140 square feet per infant. This will create more privacy and space for each patient and family and provide a higher standard of care. The area currently occupied by the Bronson BirthPlace and NICU in the West Pavilion will subsequently be developed into 40 additional private rooms for adult patients.

The new North Pavilion will have medical offices on the first floor for obstetricians, nurse midwives, perinatologists, neonatologists and related healthcare providers. Support services, such as laboratory and diagnostics, will also be incorporated along with a caf� and other amenities. The building already includes two floors operating as patient care units.

Select Specialty Hospital, a long-term acute care hospital, leases space on the second floor, and Bronson’s Adult Medical Unit (AMU) occupies most of the third floor. Bronson envisions that the Children’s Hospital and associated pediatric providers will move into the North Pavilion at a future date, allowing the building to then function as a dedicated infant’s and children’s hospital.

“It is a tribute to our entire staff that so many patients and physicians are choosing Bronson for the quality of care and healing environment we’ve created,?? said Bronson President & CEO Frank Sardone. ?This plan to develop a new patient care pavilion on the North Campus and add more adult inpatient rooms on the South Campus will allow us to continue to grow to keep pace with their needs. It also reflects our continued commitment to downtown Kalamazoo and to reinvesting in services that need to be sustained and accessible to the community. That’s part of our mission as Kalamazoo’s only locally governed healthcare system.”

Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott, the same architectural firm that designed the facilities Bronson opened in 2000, are working on this project in partnership with local firm Diekema Hamann. This will ensure that the evidence-based design and service standards established on the South Campus are integrated throughout the new development.

Bronson’s Facility Development Team, architects, and groups of managers, physicians and staff have been engaged in campus expansion planning since early this year. Bronson’s Board of Directors approved the project on May 26. The project will be completed in two phases.

The first phase, the $38.1 million North Pavilion development, will be a two-year project. Design and construction document development will occur throughout the remainder of 2005. Actual construction will take place from late 2005 to early 2007 with a planned opening in March 2007. Bronson expects to add about 70 employees in a variety of patient care and support positions as a result of the North Pavilion development.

Bronson will invest $2.5 million in streetscape improvements along Healthcare Plaza to better connect Bronson’s North and South Campus areas.

This will be completed by the time the North Pavilion opens. Parking is already in place on the North Campus as a result of the opening last year of the Jasper Street ramp. This summer, 190 surface parking spaces will open at the corner of John and Lovell streets as landscaping work is completed there in the footprint of the North Tower razed in 2004.

The South Campus development to create 40 new adult inpatient rooms on the third floor of the West Pavilion is the second phase of campus expansion.

It will be an $8.8 million dollar investment and will take about one year to construct. Planning and design for this area will occur from late 2005 through 2006. Construction will begin soon after the Bronson BirthPlace and NICU move to the North Pavilion in 2007 and should be completed by March 2008. At least 80 new jobs are predicted for this phase of development.

The $50 million Bronson is investing in this campus expansion project reflects the organization’s continuing dedication to economic development in downtown Kalamazoo. The project will bring Bronson’s total investment in the development of its downtown facilities to over one quarter of a billion dollars since 1995.