(BLOOMINGTON) – The new IU Health Bloomington Hospital will open in late 2021.
Tim St. Clair, senior project manager for design and construction with IU Health, says a cold and damp winter followed by a wet spring and a large limestone deposit on the site posed some challenges.
The IU Board of Trustees and the IU Health Board of Directors reviewed the construction plan and settled on the new time frame for the Bloomington Regional Academic Health Center.
The hospital will be six stories, with the emergency department located on the first floor, surgery on the second floor and inpatient care on levels two through six. Patients will have private rooms with 196 rooms and 166 room for outpatient care. Behavioral Health Services will be on the sixth floor.
There will be about 1,700 parking spaces scattered around the campus. There will be two entrances to the Bloomington Regional Academic Health Center. One where Pete Ellis Drive becomes Range Road at East 10th Street. The other from the Ind. 45/46 Bypass. INDOT will install a stoplight at the entrance off the bypass.
The academic portion of the $400 million facility will open at the end of October 2020. The first classes won’t take place there until January 2021. The education wing will be connected to the hospital by a single-story walkway.
The new educational space will allow the IU School of Dentistry to expand from Indianapolis to the Bloomington campus. IU Bloomington’s schools of nursing and social work will also increase program offerings.
