The public got its first glimpse Friday morning of what the new IU Health Bloomington Hospital and Indiana University academic health sciences building will look like.
Architectural design plans were presented to the IU Board of Trustees' facilities and auxiliaries committee for approval. Seven members of the committee voted in favor. Trustee Michael Mirro, who is also a member of the IU Health Board of Directors, abstained. Trustee James Morris was not present. The board officially approved the design plans Friday afternoon at its business meeting.
The design calls for one unified building, with 620,000 square feet dedicated to the hospital and 115,000 square feet for the academic portion. The square footage for the hospital portion is about 40,000 square feet larger than what was included in a site design proposal the board approved in February. Square footage for the academic portion was the same.
During the February meeting, trustees expressed concerns about the planned number of parking spaces and patient beds. Architectural designs approved Friday called for about 1,850 parking spaces, up about 350 from the previous proposal.
Mirro, a physician from Fort Wayne, expressed concern at the February meeting about plans to reduce the number of beds from more than 200 at the existing hospital site off West Second Street to 184 at the new building near the Ind. 45/46 Bypass. James Mladucky, vice president of design and construction for IU Health, said there has been a shift from inpatient to outpatient care across the health industry. He acknowledged the baby boomer generation is aging, but said the generation behind it isn't as large, so a balance has to be struck between what's needed now and what will be needed in the future.