(Courtesy of Susan Phillips)
A $102 million extension to the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine will allow the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania to provide better accommodations for patients.
Plans for the South Pavilion Extension were approved by the Board of Trustees on Friday, Nov. 4.
The Perelman Center is located at 3400 Civic Center Boulevard, around the corner from HUP’s Spruce Street entrance.
The project is scheduled to begin construction in winter 2012 and to be completed by winter or spring 2014.
The extension hopes to remedy the fact that some of HUP’s facilities are aging and that the hospital does not have enough single-bed patient rooms.
“More than 50 percent of HUP’s physical plant is more than 40 years old and nearly 40 percent of the inpatient beds are double-bedded rooms with a significant lack of critical care beds,” according to the resolution submitted to the Trustees.
“The outdated hospital facility hurts HUP’s competitiveness, leading to lower patient satisfaction,” the resolution continued.
The extension will be built at the Penn Tower site, which was initially recommended by lead architect Rafael Vinoly, who designed the Kimmel Center for Performing Arts and was one of the finalists in the World Trade Center design.
The project is part of HUP’s two-step process for renewal. The second step is to design and build a replacement parking garage.
In the future, Penn Tower will be demolished to make way for a new inpatient bed tower. The South Pavilion Extension will allow remaining outpatient services to relocate to the Perelman Center.
The extension is designed to support 225,000 gross square feet for contiguous ambulatory and diagnostic space and 520,000 gross square feet for patient care, research or faculty offices.
It is also intended to facilitate interdisciplinary care by placing the Neurology, Neurosurgery and Neuropsychiatry departments in the same place, HUP spokesperson Susan Phillips said.
The resolution sent to the Trustees called the renovations of HUP — Penn Health System’s flagship hospital — a “critical component of the facility renewals plans.”
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