Avera Expands Patient Care Space With Major Building Project
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As construction continues on the campus of Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center in Sioux Falls, the new six-story tower to house women’s and children’s services is taking shape.
Together with a new medical office pavilion at the Avera on Louise Health Campus, this represents the largest building project in Avera history at a cost of $245 million and 350,000 square feet of new patient care space.
Along with creating space to enhance and expand women’s and children’s care, the project is creating a new welcoming entrance to the hospital.
“Avera has been investing in women’s and children’s care for decades, with a wide range of services and specialties. With this project, we’re bringing them together like never before,” said Ronald Place, MD, Regional President and CEO of Avera McKennan. “The new tower building addition will provide a state-of-the-art home for the excellent care we are already providing through an expert team.”
Floor by floor, this tower will contain:
• Gathering and education space
• Labor, delivery and antepartum
• Postpartum care
• Pediatric hospital care and pediatric intensive care
• Neonatal intensive care
The modern facility will be designed specifically for women and children, with cheery, calming spaces curated for patient comfort and equipped with the latest care technology.
The building project is not only a home for expanded and enhanced women’s and children’s services; it addresses numerous needs, including more medical/surgical care space. Avera McKennan is a hometown hospital for Sioux Falls residents, as well as a specialty and tertiary referral center for a 72,000-square-mile geographical footprint.
A $50 million fundraising campaign, Tomorrow’s Promise, is the largest philanthropic campaign in the region to support comprehensive women’s and children’s services. The Avera Foundation campaign will support the new tower addition, and also Avera services that branch out and touch lives in other ways, including expansion of patient and family lodging, and patient and family support. Tomorrow’s Promise campaign chairs are James Gaspar, Jennifer Kirby, Randy Knecht and Molly Uhing, MD.
“Women’s and children’s care is important to me, because I realize that it’s often the beginning of a lifetime of care at Avera,” said Dr. Uhing, an OB/GYN specialist at Avera. “We want their experience to be amazing and unforgettable. As a doctor, I’m excited about space that will accommodate the latest technology, as well as changing needs and desires of our patients.”
At the Avera on Louise Health Campus, Avera is building the second major part of this project – a new medical office pavilion to house gastroenterology services.
“We wanted flexibility with our new medical office pavilion,” Place said. “Yet we planned far in advance that this would be the new home for GI services in Sioux Falls. This not only allows for growth in GI specialty visits and procedures, it allows for growth in orthopedics.”
When the pavilion is complete, Avera will refit former GI space in the Avera Specialty Hospital for the in-demand specialty of orthopedics, meaning that a greater portion of the specialty hospital will be dedicated to orthopedic clinic visits and surgical procedures.
The new pavilion will offer more general GI procedure rooms for uses such as colonoscopy and endoscopy, plus two advanced procedure rooms.
Projected completion dates for these projects are early 2026 for the medical office pavilion at Avera on Louise, and early 2027 for the main campus hospital expansion.
“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.