University of Iowa hospitals moving forward on design for new patient tower

IOWA CITY — A day after getting state Board of Regents approval to proceed with $185 million worth of health care and medicine-related projects, the University of Iowa issued a request for qualifications Friday from firms interested in designing and developing a massive new North Inpatient Tower next to Kinnick Stadium.

The request shows UI Health Care is moving ahead with the new tower, first mentioned last year as part of its 10-year master plan, aimed at alleviating crowding across the more than 800-bed UI Hospitals and Clinics.

Planned north of the 14-story UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital, the new tower will emerge just west of the general hospital campus and overlook Kinnick to its southwest.

It will go up on property now occupied by a parking ramp, water tower and the Wendell Johnson Speech and Hearing Center and will include an adjacent “multistory concourse,” creating a “welcoming front door to the UIHC campus,” according to the documents.

In addition to the patient tower, UIHC’s 10-year master facilities plan includes new research, academic and ambulatory care buildings. Documents indicate the ambulatory “outpatient tower” could encompass 709,800 gross square feet; the research and academic facility would include 320,000 gross square feet; and the new patient tower would span 842,000 gross square feet.

For reference, UIHC’s 190-bed Children’s Hospital — which opened in 2017 — is 507,000 square feet, and a new $525.6 million UIHC hospital campus under construction in North Liberty is 469,000 square feet.

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Also in the works in the coming months is a $95 million two-floor addition to UIHC’s existing patient tower; a $37 million emergency room expansion; an $8 million south wing conversion for more beds; and a $2.3 million “ophthalmology simulation lab” on Parking Ramp 4’s lower level.

UIHC also is spending up to $49 million more to build out an expanded neonatal intensive care unit on the seventh floor of its Children’s Hospital that — undergoing a sizable window repair and replacement project — has seen its budget swell from $270.8 million to up to $450 million.

To enable construction on the new patient tower, the university will build a $75 million West Campus Parking Ramp, raze several buildings and replace or relocate their inhabitants into — for example — the new health sciences academic building.

Administrators haven’t released budgets for some of these projects, but a five-year UIHC capital plan shows it spending $620.9 million on the new North Inpatient Tower between fiscal 2024 and 2028. That figure, according to the documents, doesn’t include “projected spending in FY 2023 or FY2029.”

UIHC is tapping multiple sources to cover the costs of its construction boom — funding the new patient tower, specifically, with a $70 million gift from the Richard O. Jacobson Foundation, along with patient revenue and Medicaid directed payments

Tower details

Specifics aired in the request for proposals from prospective designers indicate the new North Inpatient Tower will include multiple floors of two 24-bed units — amounting to 48 beds per floor — increasing the hospital’s overall bed total and “dramatically” decreasing UIHC’s double-occupancy rooms.

It will feature new main hospital entrances for patients, staff, and visitors; new operating rooms; and public amenity space “with full-glass views to the surrounding Iowa landscape, as well as into Kinnick Stadium from the southwestern corner.”

The project will include both a tunnel and a concourse linked to the Children’s Hospital; dining rooms and retail space; and a skywalk connecting to parking ramps — plus shelled space for future growth.

Responses from prospective designers are due May 10, with shortlist interviews and contract negotiations planned for June. UIHC wants to complete its project team selection in September — including a “construction manager at risk” — with schematic design beginning in the 2023-2024 winter.

“Operational planning and programming is currently underway, and it is intended that this work will be complete late 2023,” according to the tower RFQ. “Current planning and pre-design information will be shared with the shortlisted firms. Final scope, budget, and schedule will be determined after these efforts have been completed.”

In choosing its design firm, UIHC is looking for Iowa-based companies with experience managing large, complex, urban development projects and experience with hospital and health care design. The university also wants proposals to include a list of UI or UIHC projects complete or underway and any familiarity with the UI project delivery process and design standards.

'In significant need’

Justifying the expansive construction and new tower, UIHC officials in their request for design firm proposals noted construction of the UIHC main campus general hospital gothic towers began nearly a century ago in 1928.

“Since that time, UI Health Care has grown to approximately 4 million square feet and serves the entire state of Iowa in lifesaving and life-changing health care across its patient care, medical education, and biomedical research mission,” according to the documents. “Additionally, a majority of the current UI Health Care main campus complex is at or approaching 50 years of age.

“The campus is in significant need of modernization.”

UIHC, according to officials and documents, is overcrowded — last year averaging an occupancy rate of 96 percent full. Congestion has impacted many aspects of the health care operation, including its emergency room — where patients often present with concerns requiring admission but end up waiting hours or more for the care they need.

The average length of stay in the emergency department rose to more than five hours last year, with total ER boarding hours increasing to more than 140,000 from around 100,000 in 2018.

Earlier this week, UIHC opened a short-stay unit to help with the ER overcrowding.

“UI Hospitals & Clinics often has adult inpatient bed occupancy rates that are significantly above industry standards,” according to the RFQ. “These high occupancy rates impact operations and the ability to welcome and care for Iowans in need.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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