Harris Health in Houston is planning a $410 million expansion at Ben Taub Hospital using land acquired from Hermann Park.
Harris Health has highlighted the next stage in the project: acquiring 8.9 acres by eminent domain from Hermann Park for construction. Hospital officials have stated that building an attachment to the hospital is a preferable alternative to building on top of it, allowing the project to proceed without shutting down critical services.
The hospital currently struggles with capacity issues linked to insufficient space to properly care for all patients effectively. These challenges ultimately lead to prolonged wait times in the emergency center, prolonged wait times for getting into a patient room, overcrowded spaces and expounded stress on both staff and patients.
As the city anticipates a dramatic rise in hospitalization cases soon, Ben Taub Hospital will need to add enough space for an additional 18,000 emergency room visits and 3,200 hospital admissions annually by 2030. To achieve this, the hospital has laid out plans to add approximately 100 more inpatient beds and procedure areas. The project will serve as a launch pad for the eventual replacement of Ben Taub Hospital.
The expansion will be linked to the main building by a skybridge. Additional plans include developing a healing garden, enhancing public areas, improving walking paths and maintaining adequate parking spaces for both the hospital and Hermann Park.
To enhance resiliency, Harris Health will build an 8-million-gallon underground cistern, a crawl space underneath all buildings with 8.5 million gallons of water retention, a dual fuel capable central utility plant and an impermeable underground utility tunnel to protect critical infrastructure.
Photo by gorden murah surabaya from Pexels
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