ANN ARBOR, MI - After nearly a year-and-a-half of assessment, the University of Michigan approved $920 million for the construction of a new adult inpatient facility.

The new 12-story, 690,000 square-foot building will be located on the main medical campus, just west of the Frankel Cardiovascular Center at the corner of Ann Street and Zina Pitcher. The plan includes relocation of 110 beds from University Hospital, plus 154 new beds for a total of 264 beds. In addition, there will be 23 procedural suites for surgical and interventional radiology.

The 264 private rooms are capable of converting to intensive care, a state-of-the-art neurological and neurosurgical center, high-level, specialty care services for cardiovascular and thoracic patients, along with advanced imaging.

Michigan Medicine CEO Marschall Runge said unveiling plans for the new adult hospital was “history in the making” and an investment in the health system’s mission of advancing health to serve Michigan and the world.

“This facility will be the most advanced state-of-the-art hospital in Michigan,” Runge said. “This is a unique facility that will allow us to do things that fit our mission of trying to provide care for the most complicated cases and ill people in Michigan.

“We have a chance to meet the growing demand and more complex health care needs in our community, to create positive economic impact for our state and to enable our employees to grow and make even greater contributions in advancing health care,” Runge added.

The added capacity supports Michigan Medicine’s clinical strategy, including more on-site tertiary and specialized care. The program emphasizes increasing access to clinical neurosciences and cardiac care services, as well as providing capacity for growth of other clinical services that would continue to be in University Hospital.

It also will alleviate capacity issues at University Hospital, which currently are around 90%, while high-use operating rooms are at 85% occupancy, impacting transfer rates for patients requiring quaternary expertise of Michigan Medicine care teams.

The new adult inpatient hospital will allow the relocation of 110 beds currently in semi-private rooms at University Hospital to the new hospital. As a result, all Michigan Medicine inpatient beds will be single private rooms.

“We’re not able to optimize beds when they’re semi-private, in terms of gender matching,” UM Health System Chief Operating Officer Tony Denton said. “We have infection control issues when you have two people sharing essentially the same space. If you are to get sicker because of sharing space with someone else, you end up staying in the hospital longer, so it’s more inefficient based on something that happened within a hospital setting. So we wanted to eliminate that possibility for safety and quality reasons.”

UM already has committed considerable funds assessing the feasibility of the new facility, spending $18.4 million in March 2018 on a comprehensive assessment, followed by another $16 million in December 2018 toward continued design and pre-construction planning. Funding for those assessments is included in the estimated cost of the hospital.

Despite unveiling extensive plans for the adult inpatient tower, details on how much on-site parking will be available is not yet known.

Denton said Michigan Medicine is working on a parking plan for patients and visitors through an evaluation of existing parking adjacent to the new facility. Additionally, the health system has been working on several remote parking and transportation initiatives for employees.

Michigan Medicine has the goal of adding 600 incremental patient spaces by fall 2020, around the same time it expects to open the new Wall Street West parking structure that will add more than 1,000 employee spaces.

The health system also announced plans on Sept. 18 to add additional express shuttle buses to support existing and new routes for employees from the parking lots located at Glazier Way Lot and Crisler Lot. It also plans to expand the express shuttle schedule in the morning and afternoon at U.S. 23 at Lee and 8 Mile roads, increasing ridership from 103 to 163 passengers. The new shuttles are expected to begin in the next two to three months.

“Clearly there will be parking on site-for patients and visitors as well as valet services for patients and visitors as they arrive,” Denton said. “Our employee parking strategy, in terms of the nearby campus, is Wall Street, which is 3 to 5 minutes away. Other parking is focusing on remote parking strategies which we’ve been focusing on for years.”

Michigan Medicine is aiming to achieve LEED Gold status for the project. The hospital is expected to exceed current energy efficiency standards by about 20 percent compared to the State of Michigan building code for energy performance.

The new hospital is expected to create approximately 1,600 new jobs, not including physicians.

Michigan Medicine plans to break ground on the new facility in October. The facility is expected to open in the fall of 2024.