Fred DeWeese reviews ongoing Medical Center construction projects during last week’s Leadership Breakfast Club. (photo by Anne Rayner)
Growth of Medical Center’s campus outlined at meeting
Currently the Medical Center spends about $85 million to $100 million each year on major construction projects and renovations, and over the past nine years, VUMC's physical footprint has increased dramatically, from nearly 5 million square feet of space to more than 9 million square feet.
The man who helped shepherd that growth, Fred DeWeese, vice president of Facilities Planning and Development, will retire next month.
“It's been an exciting time here at Vanderbilt for the last nine years. It's been a great, great experience for me and my team,” DeWeese told the Leadership Breakfast Club last Friday during his half-hour campus building update.
Projects reviewed were:
• Construction begins in earnest April 1 for Vanderbilt Health at One Hundred Oaks, the 440,000-square-foot campus extension off I-65, four miles south of downtown Nashville. Vanderbilt clinics and emergency departments currently see 900,000 visits per year, and are projected to see 1.5 million visits per year within five years. VUMC will add about 1,500 employees in connection with the campus extension, and the 100 Oaks Shopping Mall will get a makeover.
• Pediatric Rehabilitation Services debuted Feb. 18 at One Hundred Oaks. Other groups moving later this year as part of phase one include the Breast Center, Center for Surgical Weight Loss, Cytogenetics, Dermatology, Interventional Pain Clinic, Medical Infusion, Multiple Sclerosis Clinic, Obstetrics and Gynecology, University Pediatrics (a three-member general pediatrics group now located in the Medical Arts Building), Hospital Patient Accounting and the Vanderbilt Medical Group Business Office.
Additional groups will establish satellite programs at One Hundred Oaks, including Cardiology, Neurodiagnostics, Pharmacy, Radiology, the Center for Women's Imaging, the Rapid Response Lab and the Vanderbilt Preoperative Evaluation Center.
• DeWeese said Vanderbilt University Hospital's new 10-story Critical Care Tower will be ready for occupancy in December 2009. In a departure from the red brick of VUH, the tower's exterior will blend instead with the sleek glass and metal exteriors of nearby research buildings. (VUH's two existing brick bed towers will eventually be renovated to match the new tower.)
• On March 31, the Vanderbilt Eye Institute will relocate from Medical Center East to the South Garage Office Building.
• Langford Auditorium reopens next month following total renovation.
• The lobby of VUH will undergo renovation this year.
• Renovation and expansion of the Cancer Center will be completed in 2009.
• The Centralized Vivarium, a new 55,000 square-foot addition above Medical Center North, will open this spring. The addition includes a new state-of-the-art Gross Anatomy Lab, which was finished ahead of the other floors and went into operation last October.
“Fortunately the Medical Center makes money. You guys are part of that. If we didn't make money, we wouldn't be doing these projects,” DeWeese said.
Following his presentation, most of the questions DeWeese received from the audience concerned the One Hundred Oaks project.
The Leadership Breakfast Club meetings are scheduled for every other month and are designed to provide an informal setting for information sharing and conversation among several levels of management and leadership.