New building, funding drive on tap for KU Hospital
February 18, 2014 | | 2 min read
The University of Kansas Hospital announced plans Monday to build a 92-bed neurosciences and surgical oncology facility at its Kansas City, Kan., campus, and hospital officials said they have secured $3.5 million in philanthropic support for the project.
Hospital officials said civic leaders Deanna and Greg Graves have pledged $1 million towards the “Cambridge North” building, which is slated for construction at the northeast corner of 39th and Cambridge streets.
Greg Graves is chairman and CEO of Burns & McDonnell, a Kansas City–based architectural and engineering firm, and is also vice chair of the University of Kansas Hospital Authority Board. Hospital officials said the Burns & McDonnell Foundation, which the employee-owners of the company fund, has pledged $2.5 million for the building. That figure represents the largest allocation in the history of the foundation, which dates back to the late 1980s, according to a company spokesman.
The hospital estimates the project will cost about $250 million. Plans call for philanthropy to finance about 40 percent of the cost, said hospital spokesman Dennis McCulloch. The balance would come from operational revenue or bond financing, he said.
McCulloch said it’s too early in the fundraising effort to project a construction timetable.
According to the hospital, patient volume in neurosciences and surgical oncology has increased nearly 40 percent in the past five years.
Cambridge North would accommodate a projected growth in the hospital workforce, according to the hospital, with slots for about 100 new physicians and 600 new patient care jobs. The facility would include 28 intensive-care beds and a dozen operating rooms, along with imaging, lab and pharmacy services.
As an independent state authority, the hospital receives no state or local tax appropriations.
“This community must embrace its academic medical center and help it provide advanced medicine for patients,” Greg Graves said in a news release. “Deanna and I are thrilled to get things started, but we will need many other community leaders and organizations to step up to make this happen.”
Hospital President and CEO Bob Page lauded the Graves’s support.
“Deanna and Greg Graves are tremendous leaders in our area. They see community needs and dedicate themselves to solving them,” Page said in the release.
Reading these stories is free, but telling them is not. Start your monthly gift now to support Flatland’s community-focused reporting.
Related Stories
Caregiving Squeezes Households Between Young and Old
Melissa Johnson knows her life is hardly unique. The Oak Grove, Missouri, woman cares for her infirm 72-year-old mother, who lives in her own home nearby. She calls her mother daily. She brings dinner to her several times a week. Johnson, who coordinates care with her aunt, a team of therapists, and a nurse, is…
Feeding Tubes and Defibrillators
Let’s begin with two stories about the growing and important field of bioethics. The first is from Ryan Pferdehirt, the newly named Flanigan Chair in Bioethics at the Kansas City-based Center for Practical Bioethics. A hospital once asked him to consult on a bioethics case in which a son thought his desperately ill, hospitalized mother…
After Tuberculosis Outbreak, Wyandotte County Parts Ways with Health Director
The director of the Wyandotte County Public Health Department is no longer with the agency, a spokesperson confirmed Tuesday. It comes after turmoil during the handling of the major tuberculosis outbreak, shown by emails obtained by the Kansas News Service. Elisha Caldwell had been head of the local health department while an outbreak of TB grew…