The 'crown jewel' opens: Three years of construction culminates with St. John's patient tower

The $101 million, 360,000-square-foot eight-story patient tower affixed to the south side of the system’s flagship hospital at 1235 E. Cherokee St. features 301 beds in 241 patient rooms that are equipped with blackout screens, sofas, data ports for personal computers and other patient perks, according to Bob Norton, director of health system facilities.

St. John’s Health System President and CEO Kim Day has affectionately dubbed the patient tower “the crown jewel of St. John’s Hospital.”

Construction began about three years ago on the tower, which is the single-largest component in the health system’s $550 million 10-year master plan. With just three years left on the plan, the only sizable project remaining is a new heart institute that will likely be built on the north end of the hospital’s campus, according to St. John’s Hospital President Jon Swope, who couldn’t disclose a price tag because the project is still in the design phase.

Under the master plan, St. John’s already has spent $275 million completing an ambulatory surgery center, emergency room, coronary care unit, cancer center and a $9 million expansion to St. John’s Lebanon facilities.

Swope said the expensive new buildings shouldn’t drive up health care costs at St. John’s. On the contrary, he expects the investments to increase efficiencies and control health care costs that are “continuing to rise at a pretty amazing rate.”

“We know the community looks to us to provide cutting-edge health care,” Swope said. “To be able to live up to that expectation, we have to make sure that the facilities, and the equipment and the technology is, in fact, meeting that need. You simply can’t accomplish what’s expected of us when you have a facility that is 30, 40 or 50 years old.”

Patient rooms already have been shut down in St. John’s east tower, built in the 1950s, and patient rooms in the west pavilion tower, built in the 1980s, will close and undergo renovations beginning in June, Swope said. The east tower will become almost exclusively doctors’ offices, but the west pavilion tower will retain some patient rooms after renovations.

Swope said all renovations should be finished within 18 months and, coupled with the new patient tower, St. John’s should gain a net total of 110 patient beds. St. John’s started moving patients into the new tower in late November, but infill work wasn’t compete until mid-April, Norton said.

Swope said the patient tower should help St. John’s recruit highly sought-after doctors and nurses. It should benefit the local economy, too, he said.

St. John’s will likely hire several hundred new workers over the next year to fill the new space. The health system has about 10,000 employees with a payroll of $325 million. St. John’s, which operates 148 facilities and mobile units in Missouri and Arkansas, in addition to its hospital campuses in Springfield, Lebanon, Mountain View, Aurora and Cassville, generated about $1.4 billion in 2007 revenues, Swope said.

Out of all the facilities under St. John’s control, though, facilities director Norton said he’s most proud of the new patient tower.

“This morning, as I went through there and saw traffic circulating through the area, I had a really good feeling about it,” Norton said. “We have created this tool to provide treatment for patients.”

Springfield-based DeWitt & Associates and Kansas City-based JE Dunn Construction Co. served as joint general contractors, and St. Louis-based Christner Inc. was architect of the patient tower.[[In-content Ad]]