Our Reimagined Campus is Taking Shape

Dear Colleagues,

For anyone who has driven down Hospital Drive or Campus Drive lately, the progress on our new Children’s Hospital is immediately obvious. Since we broke ground in October 2021, the structure has taken clear shape, and the renderings are starting to come to life.

Uiversity of Missouri new Children’s Hospital construction — Drywall is already going up on level four of our new Children’s Hospital, which will house our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

The steel for the skybridge to connect the hospital to our University Physicians Medical Building (UPMB) was delivered this week. The bridge will connect the third floor of UPMB to the third floor of Children’s Hospital and is tangible proof of our commitment to bring all of our highly specialized teams, top researchers and advanced resources together in one place.

I was recently able to tour the construction site and see firsthand the progress our partners at PARIC | Barton Malow have made. I was impressed to see just how far along we are in construction. We are even to the point where drywall is being hung and primed on some of the floors.

Construction is progressing on time, and we expect to be given “the keys” to Children’s Hospital this fall. Once we hit that major milestone, we will be able to get inside the building and begin installing finishings and moving in our state-of-the-art equipment as we prepare for a summer 2024 grand opening. Once our construction partners give us the keys, we will have the opportunity for more employees to tour the space for themselves. I cannot wait for you to see the space firsthand.

Beyond the construction of the new Children’s Hospital, we have several projects in various stages of design and development as we prepare for the big opening. Later this summer, our dermatology clinic will relocate from UPMB to a new location at Discovery Park, and our neurology clinic will relocate to the second floor of UPMB.

You may have noticed renovations and construction work taking place at Pershing Hall and the Lottes Health Sciences Library. In March 2024, our Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health offices and Department of Child Health offices will be moving to Pershing Hall and Lottes Library, respectively.

In that same month, we will be moving our Neurosciences Intensive Care Unit into the eighth floor of the new Children’s Hospital, followed by our Pediatrics unit on the seventh floor in early April. In June 2024, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit moves to the fourth floor and the Labor and Delivery Unit moves to the fifth floor. In addition to these moves into the new Children’s Hospital, several units will be relocating into various clinical spaces. Take a look at this schedule of upcoming moves (MU pawprint login required).

While these moves and enabling projects bring with them their own set of challenges, everything we are doing is to give our patients the best care possible.

With an integrated campus, our ability to deliver top-quality care for our patients will be even stronger. Our patients will have easier access to doctors that specialize in the care they need. We will offer a more streamlined experience, with reduced time and distance between appointments. We will have better care coordination across specialties and improved access to the latest technologies.

As we rapidly approach 2024 and the opening of our latest hospital, thank you, all, for your support of our patients and our mission to save and improve lives!

Sincerely,