Toronto hospital to build $800 million patient tower

Michael Lewis

Special to Ontario construction news

After awarding a $34 million planning grant in 2022, Ontario's PC government will invest another $794 million in the construction of a new University Health Network (UHN) patient tower at Toronto Western Hospital.

The 260,000-square-foot, 15-story tower at the West Bathurst Street campus will include 20 state-of-the-art operating rooms, including 82 patient and critical care beds, as well as three image-guided ORs for complex neurosurgery and spine procedures.

It also includes single patient rooms designed to increase the hospital's infection control capacity to respond to future public health outbreaks. The hospital foundation is raising funds to complete the financing for the $1.3 billion project.

The patient tower will allow UHN, a chain of teaching and research hospitals in Toronto, to reduce its surgical backlog by increasing the number of surgeries completed by more than 20% over the next 10 years, the province said in a statement.

The project is part of the modernization of the hospital, which is more than a century old in the main pavilion and 60 years old in the day surgery McLaughlin Pavilion.

OHN says current operating rooms are safe but outdated. “The need to improve the existing OR is clear, and renovation is not the best option.” It said the tower design includes modern digital infrastructure and comfortable space for family members and other visitors.

DIALOG is the design partner and EllisDon is the construction manager, with construction scheduled to begin in early 2024 and be completed in 2028.

Eleven floors of the tower will be dedicated to patient care and support, one floor will house mechanical rooms, and three floors will have an elevated ground level. The 40,000-square-foot, two-story low parking building will have more than 80 underground parking spaces.

The tower will replace the surface parking lot and three-story auditorium currently located there.

“Our government is making a record investment in hospital infrastructure, shoveling the ground for more than 50 new projects to expand hospital capacity across the province,” said Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones. statement.