Avera announces plans to build a six-story tower addition to Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center and a three-story building on the Avera on Louise Health Campus. Combined, the projects will be the largest building project in Avera’s history at a total cost of $245 million. It will also be the largest expansion of hospital patient care space in Sioux Falls’ history at 350,000 square feet.
“This project is important to all of Avera’s 300 locations. Our tertiary hospital is foundational to the quality of care we’re able to deliver as an interconnected system. Years of planning and research have gone into evidence-based care for the population we serve, and I’m confident this project will benefit patients for generations to come,” said Jim Dover, FACHE, Avera President and CEO.
The tower will create a new main entrance for Avera McKennan as well as a focused area for women’s and children’s hospital services. Adding a total of 158 beds, the project will accommodate current and future growth of Sioux Falls and increased demand for medical services.
Avera experiences 42,000 inpatient and 1.1 million hospital outpatient visits each year. Patients come to Avera McKennan from a radius of 300 miles; it’s a hub of specialty referral and tertiary care for 36 Avera hospitals and 200 clinics across a 72,000-square-mile footprint, serving a population of 1 million.
“Avera has three core values of compassion, hospitality and stewardship. In line with our value of hospitality, our new tower will create a welcoming front door to our hospital,” said Ronald Place, MD, Regional President and CEO of Avera McKennan. Due to building additions throughout the years, Avera McKennan’s front entrance is currently nearly underneath another building addition and is not readily visible to visitors and patients.
“At the same time, we’re excited to create a focused area of clinical excellence for women’s and children’s services at Avera McKennan,” Place said.
The new tower will allow Avera to create dedicated and centralized space for women’s and children’s acute care and expand areas for the unique hospital needs these two populations require: labor and delivery, postpartum care, newborn nursery, neonatal intensive care unit, pediatric hospital care and pediatric intensive care.
Avera has a full depth of women’s specialty care, from obstetrics and gynecology to maternal-fetal medicine, gynecologic oncology, urogynecology, internal medicine care for women, in addition to family medicine and more.
Avera also has seen tremendous growth of its pediatric specialties. Over the past two decades, Avera has been steadily growing its pediatrics program. Avera has 10 general pediatricians in Sioux Falls and 25 throughout the system, as well as a large group of pediatric subspecialists: cardiology, critical care/intensive care and trauma, endocrinology, gastroenterology, infectious disease, neonatology, nephrology, neurology, orthopedics and pulmonology/sleep medicine. Avera’s many family practitioners also provide care to children.
“The depth and breadth of our specialty care in both women’s and children’s services must be supported by excellence in hospital care. We have the expert staff in place, but we need modern and expanded facilities to complement the compassionate and excellent care our teams provide,” Place said.
At the Avera on Louise Health campus, Avera will build a three-story building for digestive health services. Gastroenterology services are currently in the Avera Specialty Hospital and attached medical building. Space vacated within the Avera Specialty Hospital by digestive health services will be converted to space for Avera’s growing orthopedic services.
In total, this project and additional moves will allow Avera McKennan to expand and enhance major services including women’s and children’s, digestive health, orthopedics, surgery, cancer care and more.
Plaza 3 on the Avera McKennan campus will be removed to make room for this project. It’s currently home to the Avera Transplant Institute. These services, including the dialysis center, will be moved to another location yet to be announced.
“The rapid growth of our Sioux Falls community is exciting, and it also means Avera McKennan must grow with it. We are looking to the future and preparing to care for the people of our growing region,” Place said. The Sioux Falls metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is projected to increase by more than 100,000 in the next 15 years. Each year, Sioux Falls’ population grows by an estimated 2.5%.
Construction is expected to begin in mid to late summer at both campuses. Estimated completion date is early 2026 for the Avera on Louise project, and early 2027 for the main hospital campus project.