Barnes-Jewish Hospital will open its Plaza West Tower to patients next month, the latest milestone in a campus renewal project more than a decade in the making.
“This project [has] allowed us to renew our facilities, to support the referral business and the most complex heart and vascular patients in the region,” said Dr. John Lynch, Barnes-Jewish Hospital’s president, during a media tour of the facility on Thursday. “About 80 to 100 new patients will be able to be served at any one time by adding this facility.”
Lynch said he expects the building will be fully staffed when patients begin arriving in October with some staff relocating and others being recruited now.
“We also have patients that are waiting in the region every day to come to Barnes-Jewish Hospital and to see our Washington University Medicine physicians,” he added. “So we expect that this new capacity will allow us to serve those patients faster.”
Barnes-Jewish Hospital's Plaza West Tower features:
- 224 private inpatient rooms for heart and vascular patients across seven floors
- 56 private intensive care rooms
- 2 floors for surgical prep and recovery
- 2 floors with state-of-the-art imaging machines, such as photon-emitting CT scanners
The hospital’s leaders said they took staff and patient feedback on the design throughout the hospital — especially reflecting on lessons they learned from working at the hospital throughout the heights of the coronavirus pandemic.
The feedback was paired with elements to help families who may be staying with a loved one at the hospital.
That includes artwork inspired by St. Louis gardens on each floor to help with wayfinding, hallway-facing windows in patient rooms, sliding doors in intensive care units, family showers, a business center, two rooftop gardens and a cafeteria expected to make 3 million meals a year.
Donna Ware, executive director of planning and design for BJC, said they have been intentional about the materials used for the campus project, whether stone, glass or metal. “There is consistency in the buildings that patients know they need to go to,” she said. “So that has really helped to unify that campus feel.”
To date, Barnes-Jewish’s campus renewal has so far generated an estimated $2 billion in direct economic impact for the St. Louis region. BJC leaders said the next phase — renovations to older sections of the hospital — will begin in 2026.
See photos from Barnes-Jewish Hospital’s new Plaza West Tower:
