Sick Kids rebuild starts with staff, student hub
Sick Kids vice-president Peter Goldthorpe says construction may start this year.
Phase One of an ambitious multibillion-dollar rebuilding project at Sick Kids hospital will create an oasis and gathering place for 3,000 staff currently scattered at several sites.
Slated for completion in 2022, the 22-storey Patient Support Centre marks the first phase of a redevelopment anticipated to span a decade.
Construction on the office tower will start as soon as late this year, said Peter Goldthorpe, vice-president of transformation at Sick Kids.
“One of the challenges we have is that we have staff scattered all over the place — not only throughout the old hospital buildings, but also off site in leased spaces,” Goldthorpe said. “Our intent is to bring all those people together.”
In addition to eking out some cost-savings, Goldthorpe said, a “good portion of this building will have simulation space, so we can train students and our staff can upgrade their skills.”
Patients’ families will also get in on the activities, with room for sessions on how to operate medical devices. A café and retail atrium at the ground level will open up the corner of Elizabeth and Elm Sts. — with the aim of creating a new social hub and destination for the public.
The general public will have access to the first four levels of the building, which will feature amenities including conference rooms and a library.
The office building, estimated to cost over $350 million to build, will serve as a bridge between the research and acute care wings of the Sick Kids campus.
The overall Hospital For Sick Children rejuvenation initiative will see several existing decades-old buildings replaced by new facilities — including a new acute care building. All phases combined are estimated to exceed $2 billion.
It’s premature to assume what the final figures will be, “because we haven’t even started the design process for the second phase,” Goldthorpe said.
Funding will be shared by the provincial government and Sick Kids.
The three-phase project starts with the construction of the office spaces, to be followed by the (main hospital) acute care tower on the northwest corner of the site, and culminating with renovations to the Atrium building to provide outpatient care.
Patrick Fejer, project lead and senior design principal at B+H, is spearheading the design and construction of the roughly 22,000-square-foot Patient Support Centre.
A key goal is catering to the “professionals who are taking care of the kids,” Fejer said. “The doctors can look out their window and they can see researchers in the adjacent research building.”