PLANO, Texas — This article was originally published by our content partners at the Dallas Business Journal. You can read the original article here.
Children's Medical Center Plano is wrapping up construction of a new tower that will boost care for families in the booming region.
The eight-story tower at 7601 Preston Road will feature advanced imaging equipment, 140 inpatient beds, 48 emergency rooms and 12 operating rooms. Additionally, the new tower will enhance the hospital's services, adding specialties such as neurology, gastroenterology and pulmonology while establishing centers for heart care, cancer and blood disorders. The hospital's largest patient group consists of those with respiratory or pulmonary issues.
The hospital is hiring 400 more employees, which should increase the total staff at Children's Medical Center Plano to about 1,600.
The new building was funded through a mix of operating revenue, reserves, investment income, debt issuance and donations from the local community, a spokesperson for Children’s Medical Center Plano said in an email.
The 395,000-square-foot tower is scheduled to open Dec. 10. HKS was the architect for the facility and Vaughn Construction was the general contractor. The project broke ground in 2021.
"This is the next big step for us to be able to get more care closer to home,” Vanessa Walls, chief market executive at Children’s Medical Center Plano, said during an Oct. 17 tour of the tower.
Once the current expansion is complete, the total square footage of the Plano campus will be just north of 1 million square feet. The new tower is part of a broader trend of hospital capital investments across the Metroplex as healthcare providers race to keep up with the region's rapid growth. Among these investments is a $5 billion new pediatric care campus by UT Southwestern Medical Center and Children’s Health. Meanwhile, Medical Center Plano is also set to undergo a $76 million expansion adding more floors to an existing tower. And new hospitals are rising farther afield, like a new Texas Health Resources facility in Forney.
Thoughtful design
The new tower is intended to serve as a pediatric care "hub" for North Texas residents. With Collin County's population growing rapidly, hospital officials aim to offer "easier access to care" for people in places like Plano, Prosper, McKinney, Frisco and surrounding communities, Walls said. They want patients to receive advanced care without having to be transferred to a facility like Children's Medical Center Dallas, which can be a difficult experience.
From 2020 to 2023, Collin County’s population grew 12.1% to an estimated 1.1 million, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. That has led to more traffic in the bustling communities north of Dallas, a challenge for both patients as well as healthcare workers.
"If you have to ... fight DFW traffic daily, it makes it pretty challenging," Walls said.
Input from the hospital's patient family advisory network helped shape the design, with a focus on comfort. The network's suggestions included healthy food options, comfortable furniture and abundant windows, aimed to "enhance" the patient and family experience.
"I think sometimes when we think about amenities, we're thinking about those 'wow factor' types of things. But in reality, patient families [are here] in a very stressful time for the care of their child and what they're looking for are those comfort items," said Graham Torres, vice president of facilities operations at Children’s Medical Center Plano.
Navigating large hospital buildings can be challenging for patients, so one of the key aspects of the design was simplifying "way-finding." Graham and the development team used unique color and floor schemes to guide visitors.
Each floor features "animal ambassadors" that represent Texas’s unique ecosystem, with animal footprints and artwork helping identify different sections of the hospital.
For example, a prairie dog, representing the Texas Panhandle, is featured on the seventh floor, which serves acute care services. Families of patients voted on which animal ambassadors they’d like to see.
Graham also implemented a universal design approach to improve the hospital's efficiency. Each room is about 340 square feet, and all units throughout the hospital have identical amenities placed in the same locations.
"As a care team member going from floor to floor, not having a bunch of unique layouts inherently makes their workflow more efficient," Graham said.
Patients also have full control over their rooms, including lighting and entertainment options.
Future goals
Children's Medical Center Plano is currently designated a level IV trauma center. By the end of 2024, the hospital plans to upgrade to level III, based on factors such as response times, equipment and specialized services. The state surveyed this designation in September.
Ultimately, the Plano hospital aims to achieve level II trauma center status to better support the level I facility in Dallas, which is the only trauma center of that level in the DFW area.
Following the construction of the new tower, hospital officials plan to renovate approximately 70,000 square feet of the existing facility. These renovations will enhance the imaging, sterile processing, and laboratory departments, and relocate the emergency department to the new tower.
The construction will also include four additional shell spaces for future operating rooms, as well as the expansion of preoperative areas and surgical suites.
All the work is designed to make the 180-acre Children’s Medical Center Plano, which opened in 2008, into an even more integral part of the Collin County community and economy.
"Future expansions are possible because of the amount of land we have," Walls said. "We do have a master plan that shows where we could and might grow, but we've got to grow into that."
