Two years after Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center announced plans to renovate and expand the current hospital campus, the first public step toward the building of the new hospital happened Thurs., Nov. 8. Le Bonheur Children's employees, physicians and patients held a celebration to mark the beginning of the demolition of the former Memphis Mental Health Institute (MMHI) building at Poplar and Dunlap, adjacent to the current Le Bonheur Children's campus.

The hospital has outgrown its facilities and must grow to accommodate all the services children of the region need. After years of planning and raising funds for the $327-million facility and 1-million-square-foot campus, the construction project is beginning.

Le Bonheur Children's President and CEO Meri Armour, MSN, MBA, saluted Le Bonheur staff and physicians for their hard work providing the framework and excellent care for Mid-South children that allowed a new hospital to become reality.  Le Bonheur staff, physicians and patients watched as a three-ton wrecking ball adorned with red paint and their signatures collided with the MMHI structure.  The ceremony was the symbolic beginning of Le Bonheur's construction phase.  Demolition of the facility will take crews 20 weeks to complete.

Joining Armour for the celebration were:

• Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare Chief Operating Officer Peggy Troy, RN, MSN
• Chaplain Corey D. Johnson
• Longtime pediatrician Dr. George Lovejoy
• 45-year-Le Bonheur employee Jean Leavy
• 51-year-employee Euilia Flinn
• Former patient Ben Tracy flipped a giant switch with his twin brother Will to start the crane moving toward impact with the building. 

The new facility is projected to cost $327 million, and Le Bonheur Children's must raise a significant portion of funds from the community.  A major fund-raising campaign goal was set at $100 million.  The hospital and its supporters have raised more than $79 million to fund the new facility.  "I am so thrilled that the community recognizes the need for Le Bonheur to grow," said Armour.  "The outpouring of support from many Mid-Southerners truly allows us to provide excellent care to our children and do what is best for kids.  From the largest corporations and foundations to Le Bonheur staff to individual donors, we are moved by their love for
Le Bonheur." 

Hospital officials plan to break ground on the new facility in Feb. 2008 and a public groundbreaking ceremony is planned for Thurs., Feb. 14, 2008.  The new Le Bonheur is scheduled to be complete in summer 2010.  Renovation and demolition of the current building and completion of a parking garage will be finished in 2011. 

About the New Le Bonheur Children's
The new hospital will consist of 12 floors and 610,000 square feet of space.  After the addition is complete, the eastern two-thirds of the existing hospital will be demolished to make way for a 400-car patient parking garage, a new entry boulevard and a site for future expansion. The existing West Tower of the hospital will be retained and used for education, research, logistical services, medical staff facilities and parent stay rooms. The existing Physician Office Building and parking garage at 777 Washington will be retained and used for the UT Medical Group's clinics and offices, physician practices and Le Bonheur administration.

The new hospital will feature 225 beds including dedicated units for pediatric intensive care, cardiovascular intensive care and neonatal intensive care. All diagnostic and treatment services will be replaced in the new building including a 14-room surgical suite, a two-room cardiac catheterization laboratory, an interventional radiology suite and an endoscopy suite. The Emergency Department will be enlarged to handle expected patient volumes beyond 2014.  The existing Emergency Department was built to treat 35,000 patients a year and is currently treating more than 70,000 annually.

The entire complex is being planned around the concept of patient and family centered care. Features include:

• private patient rooms
• all patient rooms planned to accommodate two parents
• a parent stay unit for family members who want to remain close by their children in critical care
• lactation rooms for parent and staff use
• a large Parent Resource Center with access to learning materials, the Internet and patient educators
• diversionary settings for inpatient children, outpatients and siblings including a reading room, a mini-movie theater and play areas
• reinvention of the patient access system to ease registration processes and improve convenience.

The facility will not only provide excellent accommodations for Le Bonheur patients and families, it will also better support Le Bonheur staff, physicians and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center's Department of Pediatrics.  Le Bonheur is the teaching facility for the department.  The new Le Bonheur campus will double the current research space in the Children's Foundation Research Center of Memphis (housed at Le Bonheur) and will provide extensive facilities for staff, physician and community education.
State-of-the-art use of information systems and wireless communications will be used to improve work, gain productivity and improve quality and connectiveness of services.

The redeveloped facility will incorporate aspects of sustainability and green building intended to minimize energy utilization and the impact on the environment.  The new hospital will be designed to meet updated building code requirements for seismic design. This will result in a safer facility that will be more capable of functioning in the event of an earthquake.

Houston-based FKP Architects is the architect of record for the Le Bonheur Children's expansion.  In the past 10 years, FKP Architects has become a leader in the design of healthcare environments for children.  FKP is the on-going architect of choice for Texas Children's Hospital of Houston, Cook Children's Medical Center of Fort Worth, Children's Medical Center of Dallas and Columbus Children's Hospital of Columbus, Ohio. 

Skanska USA is building the new Le Bonheur Children's.  Skanska USA Building Inc. is a leading national and local provider of construction, pre-construction consulting, general contracting and design-build services to a broad range of U.S. industries including healthcare, education, high-tech, aviation, transportation, sports and entertainment. Skanska has been ranked as the No. 1 healthcare builder in 2007 by Modern Healthcare. The company, part of the Skanska AB global group of companies, is headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, and has approximately 3,800 employees.

Skanska is one of the world's leading construction groups with expertise in construction, development of commercial and residential projects and public-private partnerships. The Group currently has 56,000 employees in selected home markets in Europe, in the U.S. and Latin America.  Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden and listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, Skanska's sales in 2006 totaled $17 billion.

For more information about the New Le Bonheur Building, please click here.