By Steve Raabe
The Denver Post
Children’s Hospital is preparing to launch a $228 million expansion that will add 124 new beds to its Aurora hospital.
Upon projected completion by the end of 2012, the addition is expected to bring at least 500 new jobs to the hospital’s workforce of 4,000. Construction is expected to begin this week.
Officials said rapid growth at the hospital, now with 298 beds, mandated the expansion several years before it was anticipated. Children’s moved in 2007 from central Denver to the Anschutz Medical Campus at the former Fitzsimons Army base.
“Even with our new facility, we’re full and needing to increase capacity,” said Jim Shmerling, president and chief executive of Children’s. “The surprise to us is in how quickly we’ve needed to expand. We originally were looking at expansion five to seven years down the road.”
The 10-story addition will be financed by $108 million in cash reserves from hospital operations, $60 million in revenue bonds and $60 million from the Children’s Hospital Foundation.
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