Representatives from Nationwide Children’s Hospital officially broke ground today on their next medical building expansion. The new nine-story building will be known as the Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion, which the hospital states will “become the country’s largest behavioral health treatment and research center specifically for children and adolescents on a pediatric medical campus.”

The new 386,000 square foot building — designed by architectural firm NBBJ — will house space designed for behavior health researchers, and will provide education and training facilities for those in the mental and behavioral health fields. The building represents just one piece of an ongoing $730 million campus expansion that includes multiple new medical buildings, parking garages and other facilities.

“We are not just breaking ground on a building, but on the design of a new system of care and research that will allow us to care for the physical and behavioral needs of children,” stated Dr. Steve Allen, CEO of Nationwide Children’s Hospital. “The national dialogue around children’s behavioral health care has to evolve. If we truly want children to reach their full potentials, we have to recognize what is limiting them, and do something about it.”

TheBig Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion is slated to open in 2020.

For more information, visit www.nationwidechildrens.org/pavilion.