HCMC Announces $191M Clinic Expansion Downtown

The Hennepin County Medical Center announced Monday plans to build a new 322,000-sqaure-foot expansion for about $191 million.
 
The new building, expected to open in 2016, will be built near the center’s main campus—across from its emergency department on 8th street in Minneapolis. The Hennepin County Board approved spending $10 million to acquire the property. HCMC expects to break ground on the project in November or December.
 
The expansion will include primary care clinics, specialty clinics, and outpatient surgery facilities. The $191 million includes the cost of the land, relocation of a helipad, and the new building. Because the new center will consolidate clinics into one building no new jobs will be added as a result of the project.
 
“First and foremost this new facility will improve the experience for our patients,” Hennepin Healthcare System CEO Jon Pryor said in a statement. “Right now our primary care and specialty care clinics downtown are spread across nine buildings that we own or lease. Bringing them together into one building will make it more convenient for our patients and more efficient for our staff.”
 
According to Mike Opat, chair of the Hennepin County Board and member of the Healthcare System’s board of directors, the expansion will complete a plan that the board approved in 2007, to upgrade the medical facilities.
 
“The rest of the original plan,” he said, “including replacing all of the intensive care units in the hospital and opening the Whittier Clinic, has been completed so now it’s time to address the need for a new clinic and specialty center downtown.”