The new Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital on the East Side of Milwaukee will open on Oct. 12. The new hospital is the final component of the four-year building project on the 22-acre campus.
The nine-story hospital at North and Prospect avenues includes 312 patient beds (411 total on hospital campus) and three specialty Institutes.
Groundbreaking for the $417 million hospital project was held in 2006.
Other projects on the campus included: Prospect Medical Commons, a 155,000-square-foot-medical office building that also houses Whole Foods market, Water Tower Medical Commons, a 162,000-square-foot medical office building that includes Columbia St. Mary’s Cancer Center and medical offices and three new parking structures; four in total providing more than 2,000 parking spaces.
The principal architect for the project is Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum (HOK).
CG Schmidt-Barton Malow was the general contractor.
Also located on the 22-acre campus are a Women’s Hospital (former Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital), Cancer Center and medical office buildings.
“Our patients were the key focus of the planning process,” said Leo P. Brideau, president and CEO of Columbia St. Mary’s. “We have created a hospital that is different from anything else in the region and fulfills our promise to provide health care that works, health care that is safe, and health care that leaves no one behind. It will make significant contributions to the way healthcare is delivered both locally and nationally.”
“We’ve built a hospital that doesn’t have marble floors or waterfalls,” said Brideau. “What it has are investments that are just as expensive as marble floors and waterfalls but they’re investments in things that make a difference in healing such as a state-of-the-art HVAC system, ensuring a constant flow of clean, fresh air.”
The hospital’s three specialty institutes that are accessed in the concourse off of the main lobby. The Institutes are: McKeithan Testing & Treatment Institute, Heart & Vascular Institute and the Orthopaedic & Neuroscience Institute
In addition to the Institutes, Columbia St. Mary’s Regional Burn Center is located on the 5th Floor, and Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Institute (SHRI) on the 8th Floor (SHRI will move from Columbia Hospital to the new hospital in December.)
The Columbia St. Mary’s Women’s Hospital, located in the former “cloverleaf” hospital building, consolidates inpatient and outpatient services for women and infants, with 35 mother/baby rooms, and 18-bed neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU), a nine-bed pediatric unit and the Van Dyke Haebler Center for Women’s Imaging.
“With it’s own entrance and valet parking, the Women’s Hospital will set a new community standard by delivering exceptional healthcare and customer service in an environment that is certain to exceed women’s expectations,” said Gail Ostrander, Columbia St. Mary’s Executive Director of Women’s Services.
Just across the street from the Women’s Hospital is Columbia St. Mary’s Cancer Center.
Consolidating the two hospitals will reduce the number of hospital beds on Milwaukee’s east side by 44 percent (from 731 licensed beds to 411 currently) and it will save the health system $19 million in annual operating costs, according to Columbia St. Mary’s.
