As part of a campuswide effort to centralize its facilities, University of Missouri Health Care is on track to relocate its Children’s Hospital to a new $232-million facility after it completes in summer 2024. Under construction since March 2021, the 323,000-sq-ft hospital in Columbia, Mo., is one of the largest and most ambitious projects in the university’s history. The nine-level concrete structure—which is being built by a joint venture of PARIC and Barton Malow—is located directly adjacent to an existing patient care tower. The two structures will connect to allow MU Health Care to integrate critical services for women and children in a single location. When it opens next year, the new facility will include inpatient services, an intensive care unit, pediatric surgery suites and the Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Unit. Additionally, women’s services will include a labor and delivery unit and a neonatal intensive care unit.
“It’s a monumental building that is going to impact lives for the foreseeable future,” says Nick Britton, construction project manager at University of Missouri-Columbia.