Cost to replace UI Children’s Hospital windows could triple to $45M

IOWA CITY — Compounding the escalating costs associated with the University of Iowa’s construction of its 14-story Stead Family Children’s Hospital, campus officials are asking permission to spend $45 million replacing damaged windows on nine floors — tripling the $15 million they originally planned to spend replacing cracked or delaminated windows on two floors.

If the Board of Regents next week approves the higher cost, UI plans to start replacing windows this spring — nearly four years after first discovering problems with windows on floors four and five in July 2019, just two years after the hospital opened in 2017.

“The building was designed to meet the needs of young Iowans and their families for decades to come,” according to a UIHC statement provided to The Gazette. “However, the children’s hospital windows are not performing as they should.”

In UIHC’s request for board approval to spend three times the planned amount, officials explained the problem is more widespread than surmised and the hospital is "experiencing systemic issues with the windows failing to perform consistent with the agreed upon specifications.”

Windows now need replacing on levels three through 11, according to board documents.

As part of the project’s total cost, UI — upon advice from window experts — installed protective film and mechanical clips on all windows deemed “potential safety hazards to provide additional protection to assure the safety of all patients, visitors and staff.”

“With proactive safety measures put in place, there is no risk posed to patients, employees, visitors, or the public,” officials said. “Nor has anyone been injured.”

The additional, unplanned expense — plus mounting legal fees associated with a long-running dispute with a contractor on the project — could further balloon the soaring cost of the 507,000-square-foot hospital, originally budgeted at $270.8 million.

With the $45 million window expenditure — plus another $16 million a judge last month ordered the UI pay contractor Modern Piping of Cedar Rapids — the hospital price tag could reach $450 million, a 66 percent increase from the initial estimate.

Although UI officials said in the board request made public Tuesday that UI Health Care will cover the window expenses with its own building usage funds, the university last summer sued two contractors that installed 900-some windows in the towering facility.

That legal case was stalled in September after a judge agreed to compel arbitration in response to arguments from the contractors, who said their contract with UIHC required disputes be handled that way.

“The procedural questions presented are for the arbitrator, and not this court, to decide,” a judge wrote in his order.

In the statement to The Gazette, UIHC officials said, “The university seeks to recover the damages it experienced as a result of the defective windows, and the responsible contractors have mutually agreed to resolve the issue through arbitration.”

As the university works through its funding approval process, arbitration talks, and replacement work, officials are continuing to assess and monitor existing windows for faults while focusing “on what it does best — providing advanced care for Iowa’s youngest patients and their families.”

“Since UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital opened in 2017, it has served hundreds of thousands of Iowans, many of whom would not be able to receive the same level of specialized, coordinated care anywhere else in the state,” officials said.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com