Philadelphia-based University of Pennsylvania Health System disclosed plans to build a 17-story, $1.5 billion patient tower.
The 500-bed private-room patient tower, named the Pavillion, will be built atop the former Penn Tower Hotel site on Penn Medicine's west Philadelphia campus site, adjacent to the medical campus' outpatient hub. The tower will house inpatient care for the Abramson Cancer Center along with emergency; heart and vascular medicine; and neurology and neurosurgery departments. It is scheduled to open in 2021.
Officials reportedly plan to use profits from Penn Medicine's operations, along with some additional philanthropic donations, to pay the majority of the $1.5 billion cost. The health system is reportedly borrowing just $450 million, according to philly.com.
"As the nation's oldest teaching hospital, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania is rooted in a history of firsts going back nearly 150 years," Ralph Muller, CEO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, said in a news release. "Now, with the Pavilion, we're poised for the next 100 years of advances in patient care."