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HKS, Perkins & Will To Design Massive $5B Children’s Health Campus In Dallas

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The Dallas offices of HKS and Perkins & Will have been tapped to design one of the country’s largest pediatric hospitals.

The new Children’s Health campus will include 552 beds and cover 4.5M SF. It will replace the existing hospital on Harry Hines Boulevard in the Medical District and take about six to seven years to build.

“Many of us are parents. This is more than a project for us – our kids are in this community,” Rachel Knox, studio leader of the health practice and partner at HKS, said in a statement. “While both of our firms have designed children’s hospitals around the world, it’s incredible to work on one in your own backyard.”

Children’s Health is among a growing number of health systems that have either expanded or built new campuses to accommodate explosive population growth in North Texas. More than 500,000 children have been added to the Metroplex’s population since 2010, and another 158,000 are expected to become residents by 2028, according to Children’s.

The new pediatric campus is a joint investment between Children’s and UT Southwestern Medical Center. It will increase in-patient, emergency department and operating room capacity while also housing a Level I trauma center, a new outpatient building and fetal care center.

“For more than 110 years, Children’s Health has served the children of North Texas,” President and CEO Christopher Durovich said in a statement. “This new pediatric campus will enable us to continue pioneering academic research, lifesaving treatments and industry-leading technology for pediatric patients for generations to come.”

McCarthy Building Cos. and J.T. Vaughn Construction are teaming up to build the $5B project, which is expected to break ground later this year.

 

Source: Bisnow

Children’s Health And UT Southwestern Plan New $2.5 Billion Dallas Pediatric Medical Campus

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Children’s Health and UT Southwestern Medical Center are in the planning stages of a new pediatric campus in Dallas.

The two entities estimated a $1.6 billion construction budget and a total project cost of $2.5 billion, according to original solicitation documents obtained by D CEO Magazine. (The project was first reported last year by the website Strategic Partnerships Inc., which follows large procurement projects across the country.)

The hospitals released the solicitation documents seeking contractors in January 2022 and had a goal of completing the project by 2028, according to the original solicitation.

“The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Children’s Health System of Texas, on behalf of the Joint Pediatric Enterprise, are soliciting statements of qualifications for selection of an Architect/Engineer firm for the New Pediatric Campus,” the executive summary reads.

The documents describe a new pediatric hospital with 532 beds, an emergency department with 90 bays, more than 90 newborn intensive care unit beds, and services to support a new labor and delivery program with approximately 30 beds. Neither health system responded to an email requesting confirmation of those specifics. Because the project is in its early stages, the specs are likely to change. The existing Dallas main campus has 490 beds.

In an internal email to UT Southwestern staff last fall, President Dr. Daniel Podolsky mentioned the new campus among other developments in the works at UTSW.

Dr. Podolsky wrote: “The planning for the new pediatric campus will accelerate as our joint pediatric experience enables our two organizations to work together to provide care to children and support their families. The new hospital and expanded ambulatory services will advance our pediatric care strategic plans and strengthen our longstanding partnership with Children’s.”

An agreement with a vendor was supposed to have been executed last May, and an 18-month planning and design process was set to commence last June. According to the UT Southwestern supplier bid portal, that RFQ has been awarded. A UT Southwestern spokesman did not respond to an email requesting comment on “design and other related services for a new children’s hospital in Dallas” on Monday.

Children’s Health and UTSW released a joint statemen that read: “Our joint pediatric enterprise is always pursuing opportunities to bolster capacity to provide care in response to record population growth and demand for pediatric specialty services in North Texas. To meet these needs, we are exploring a possible new pediatric campus. Specific details on a project of this magnitude are not final, or approved, and may not be for some time. We look forward to sharing accurate, finalized, information with the community if it is approved by both our institutions and associated boards.”

According to the original timeline in the documents, “schematic design documents” were supposed to be presented to the Board of Regents for approval next month. Final “design development documents” were to be submitted to the regents in August, and construction was originally planned to begin next year. A new timeline for the project was not immediately available.

The original solicitation documents also say that the new facility is set to replace all the services offered in the current hospital and bring services from other facilities to the new campus. The project description included plans for a new master plan for the campus, an administrative building for clinical and support staff, an ambulatory care facility with 250 exam rooms, a utility plant to support the campus, at least one parking garage with 6,500 spaces, and other infrastructure elements. Whether these details make it into the final plans is yet to be determined.

Children’s Health was founded in 1913, growing and expanding into its location in 1967 with 130 beds. In 2008, Children’s approved the construction of a campus in Plano, which now has 72 beds. In 2014, the organization rebranded to Children’s Health. It currently serves 800,000 visits annually.

The hospital is unlikely to be built in the exact location of the existing campus to avoid any interruptions in service, but the joint venture with UTSW makes the new site likely to be located somewhere in the Medical District. The area has several open spaces, especially north of the current campus near Inwood Boulevard and Harry Hines Boulevard. Final design plans have not yet been approved.

The Medical District has been bustling with construction projects. In December, the state broke ground on a new psychiatric hospital across the street from the Children’s Health Dallas. The project received $282.5 million from the state, and Children’s Health donated $200 million to support a pediatric psychiatric wing. It will have 296 beds, with 96 reserved for children. That state hospital is set to finish construction in 2025.

A Texas Public Information Act request to review documents related to the new pediatric hospital submitted has yet to be fulfilled by UT Southwestern.

 

Source: D CEO Magazine

Helping Kids Or Building Empires? Why Children’s Hospitals Are Popping Up In Dallas Suburbs

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When it comes to children’s health, can you have too much of a good thing?

That’s worth asking after two leading health systems announced they’re building big children’s facilities in Prosper, near the Dallas North Tollway and U.S. Highway 380. The two projects, about 35 miles north of downtown Dallas, are just 3 miles apart.

Cook Children’s of Fort Worth plans to build a hospital in Prosper, just 3 miles from an even larger project planned by Children’s Health of Dallas.  (PHOTO CREDIT: Cook Children’s Health)

Cook Children’s, whose flagship hospital is in downtown Fort Worth, unveiled plans for a hospital on April 25, hours after Children’s Health in Dallas announced plans for a new campus on 72 acres.

While the additions would greatly increase the offerings in specialized pediatric care, that’s just the half of it. About 8 miles to the south in Frisco, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children opened in October. Not far away, there’s Children’s Medical Center Plano, which opened in 2008.

With the two latest expansions, there would be four children’s facilities within 8 miles of Frisco City Hall. For some context, the entire Dallas metro region had four children’s hospitals for years: Cook’s in Fort Worth and three in Dallas: Children’s, Scottish Rite and Medical City Children’s.

Will this new competition help reduce health care costs in North Texas, which are among the highest in the country? Or will it drive up spending because hospital companies must recoup their investments one way or another? And what does it say about the priorities of two respected nonprofits devoted to improving the health of kids?

Each system has billions in assets, hundreds of millions in cash and strong profit margins at its flagship hospitals. What they’re doing is following the money — and the families with good insurance coverage.

“The economics are driving this, not health care public policy,” said Britt Berrett, a former hospital administrator who teaches health care management at the University of Texas at Dallas.

The companies are also tracking population growth. From 2016 to 2018, Frisco added over 20,000 residents, a 14% increase, according to a report by Moody’s Investors Service. Frisco’s property tax collections, a reflection of the area’s rising wealth, grew 24% over the same period, far faster than in Dallas and Fort Worth.

But Frisco, Plano and the surrounding area have many hospitals already, including recent additions such as Baylor, Scott and White’s sports therapy center and Texas Health Frisco. Last year, Medical City Plano started a $107 million patient tower with 90 beds.

So what to think about putting four children’s facilities in such a concentrated area?

“We call it saturation,” said Berrett, a past president of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. “Beware the medical industrial complex.”

Executives at both Children’s Health and Cook Children’s were not available to talk about such issues, according to the companies’ spokeswomen.

“Unfortunately, schedules did not align to arrange an interview for your story,” wrote Children’s Health in an email. The company included a statement about “serving patients in the fast-growing area around Prosper and our mission to make life better for children.”

That’s a noble mission, to be sure, but it’s still fair to ask whether the new investment is more about protecting market share from Cook Children’s, which is clearly reaching beyond its usual customers. Neither company would disclose how much it plans to spend. Children’s Health wouldn’t even confirm it’s building another hospital on the site, although its rendering appears to have a big one.

Texas does not require a “certificate of need” to add hospitals or nursing home beds. It lets the market decide, which means booming, affluent areas get more attention and investment.

In an email, a Cook Children’s spokeswoman said the administrators “best fit to speak about this” were out of town. She requested questions in writing — and some answers were less than direct.

So are we building too many children’s facilities in the area?

“We see a growing and unmet need plus a lack of coordinated care for the children in this important service area, which Cook Children’s will accommodate through its expansion plans,” wrote Nancy Cychol, chief of hospital services.

Will there be enough demand to recruit specialists, such as pediatric heart surgeons, and to develop true centers of excellence?

“Cook Children’s is very thoughtful in evaluating all relevant market information to determine where to locate services and the scope of services offered,” Cychol wrote.

Children’s Health and Cook are nearly the same size. Both have over 7,500 employees, and reported over $1.7 billion in 2018 revenue and over $3 billion in assets, including gifts from donors.

One big difference: Children’s in Dallas had twice the share of Medicaid patients, whose payments for care tend to be much lower than customers with private health insurance.

Cook’s operating income was nearly $139 million last year, 63% higher than Children’s, according to the companies’ annual financial filings.

“Most children’s hospitals have great leverage with insurers because they almost always have to be included in  employers’ network of providers. They offer expensive specialized care that isn’t available elsewhere, and they can get a premium for primary care,” said industry analyst Allan Baumgarten. “The big buildup near Prosper raises several questions and the most important is: “Who’s gonna pay for this new capacity?” In states that require regulatory approval for new hospitals, some proposals were rejected with the support of employers that feared they would have to cover much of the bill.”

How would Cook’s respond if local players — worried about rising health prices — pushed back on its plan?

“We don’t believe employers or insurance companies would ever object to competition in the marketplace,”  wrote Cook’s Cychol, “especially if the competition drives better value, better quality and convenient, coordinated care.”

Presumably, that’s at any price.

 

Source: Dallas News