University of Virginia Medical Center was able to redesign and accelerate portions of a $394-million expansion project to meet demand for bed capacity brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Charlottesville facility opened 15 ICU isolation beds on April 2 on a 28-bed floor of the six-floor patient tower portion of the project. Three floors of the tower, which are roughly 25,000-sq-ft each, are tentatively scheduled to open by June with the remaining three held as a shell for future space.