Tall & Urban News

The university is seeking approval from the board of trustees this week for the construction of the 1.9 million-square-foot (176,515-square-meter) 820-bed inpatient hospital tower. The new 24-floor facility is planned for the area west of the James Cancer Center and Solove Research Institute, in space made available from the recent relocation of Cannon Drive.

Nearly three years after Ohio State announced plans for a new hospital tower, the university is moving forward with the largest project in its history.

Pending trustees’ approval, the facility is expected to open in early 2026.

Newly released renderings of the hospital show a glass-and-brick structure designed to maximize light in rooms to improve patient outcomes, the university said. The image shows a large Block O at the height of the tower, with a garden area on top of the second floor facing west.

“We wanted to make it absolutely clear that this is a state-of-the-art-facility,” said Dr. Hal Paz, Ohio State chancellor for health affairs and Wexner Medical Center CEO. “And No. 2 ... that this is an integral part of the Ohio State University. When you see the building and you see the signs, you can’t miss it.”

Construction of the tower itself is expected to cost about US$1.2 billion. Additional costs for the architectural design and supporting infrastructure, including a parking garage and sterilization building, will put the total at US$1.79 billion.

The facility is to include diagnostic, treatment and inpatient service areas, an emergency department, imaging areas, operating rooms and critical care, medical and surgical beds. It also will have an indoor cafe, outdoor park areas and conference facilities for the Wexner Medical Center

The beds planned for the tower would be in private rooms with a bathroom and pullout couch for family members.

The new beds are to replace and expand on the existing 440 beds currently in the medical center’s Doan and Rhodes halls. Those buildings will be repurposed for administrative space.

About 84 of the 820 new beds are designated for the James Cancer Center. The James also will recover another 64 additional beds when critical care space currently in its facility moves to the new tower.

The tower also is to include 60 neonatal intensive care unit bassinets.

When the facility is completed, Ohio State officials estimate it will create about 1,800 permanent jobs with annual salaries around US$75,000. That’s in addition to the construction jobs created to build the tower.

Incoming Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson described the planned hospital tower as an exciting project and milestone for the university, noting it would drive research across multiple disciplines. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the need for experts to converge to develop drugs and vaccines is an example of why such cross-disciplinary research is necessary, she said.

“In order to do that, we’re going to rely on these kind of facilities, this investment, but draw on the expertise of all the colleges. We have expertise in many of these areas,” Johnson said. “This facility will be a driver for our convergent research.”

Paz said the large new facility makes sense based on Ohio State’s patient capacity patterns and trends for patient care. Those trends are shifting toward more care in outpatient centers, while inpatient hospitals serve patients who are very sick or need specialized care, Paz said.

This year’s coronavirus pandemic only highlighted those needs, he said.

“When the pandemic hit, my passion (for the project) went into overdrive because there was this need to have facilities that could accommodate the most critically ill patients that were coming to us from broad geographic areas,” he said.

It also makes sense given Ohio State’s land-grant mission and its need to serve a growing central Ohio, Johnson said.

“Columbus is one of the fastest-growing cities ... so you start to see the need because of the growth in the population,” she said.

For more on this story, go to Dispatch.