Mayo Clinic Health System opened a new $155 million hospital bed tower on the Mankato campus in 2024. Named the Mankato Hospital Expansion and Modernization, this project adds 121 hospital beds in a three-floor vertical expansion.

Hospital floors in the new tower link to the existing hospital and includes:

A new flexible and expanded ICU and Progressive Care Unit.

A new Medical-Surgical Unit.

A new Family Birth Center, including Labor and Delivery, Postpartum and Triage rooms. A cesarean surgical suite and a Level 2 nursery for our youngest patients.

“As part of Mayo Clinic’s Bold. Forward. 2030 strategic plan, the expansion and modernization of the Mankato hospital allows more patients to receive care close to home,” says Prathibha Varkey, M.B.B.S., Mayo Clinic Health System president. “This improves patients’ experiences by reducing transfers to other hospitals, travel time and costs. It also helps foster continuity of care with the local care team.”

Patient & Community Benefits

Meeting and exceeding patients’ needs

The Mankato Hospital Expansion and Modernization project underscores that patients come first at Mayo Clinic Health System. The new spaces prioritize patient comfort, privacy and safety.

Large private patient rooms are filled with natural light due to generous windows with plenty of space for visitors. Each room has a ceiling-mounted lift to help patients move around, including into the spacious bathroom with a shower. Patients can control room temperature, lighting, entertainment and get important information from their beds.

Rest is critical to recovery, so each unit was designed with noise reduction in mind. Finally, multiple comfortable lounges provide relaxing places for visitors to congregate near hospitalized loved ones.

More than just an addition

The Mankato Hospital Expansion and Modernization project is more than just an addition to the hospital. This is a $155 million investment into rural community care and a key part of Mayo Clinic’s Bold. Forward. initiative to seamlessly integrate physical spaces and digital capabilities to meet patients’ unmet and evolving needs.

In the Mankato bed tower, patients and families will find the latest advancements in world-class healthcare that is delivered in a warm and restful environment.

The project’s innovations extend beyond Mankato as well. Improvements put into practice will benefit Mayo Clinic Health System locations across Southwest Minnesota, as what works here is shared and disseminated across all sites.

Expanded capacity to meet community needs

The project will add 121 patient beds in the Mankato community. This ensures the capacity to provide timely medical care for patients, keeping them closer to home during emergencies, epidemics or health crises.

Key project elements ensure that the hospital can evolve to meet changing healthcare needs. Patient rooms and spaces were designed to be flexible and adjust as medicine changes and can support team collaboration and caring for patients inside and outside the facility and across digital platforms.

Advanced technology

New technology is fully integrated to provide personalized care for each patient and improve the efficiency of staff by reducing administrative burden. Staff have more time to provide the irreplaceable human touch and empathy that is essential to patient care.

Featured Spaces

Fourth floor: Intensive Care Unit and Progressive Care Unit

The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) provides critical care for seriously ill and injured patients. It has special equipment, specially trained staff and standards to allow for continuous monitoring and life support.

The Progressive Care Unit (PCU) is the intermediate level of care between the Medical-Surgical unit and ICU. Rooms can flex between ICU and PCU levels of care, depending on each patient’s needs.

Intensive Care Unit and Progressive Care Unit 3D tour

Fifth floor: Medical-Surgical Unit

This hospital unit is dedicated to caring for adult and pediatric patients who are recovering from medical conditions or surgical procedures.

Medical-Surgical 3D tour

Sixth floor: Family Birth Center

The Family Birth Center is designed with the comfort of patients in mind. Private labor, delivery and recovery rooms offer a homelike atmosphere that combines the highest level of comfort with advanced obstetrical equipment and technology. A dedicated cesarean section delivery suite is in the unit. If an emergency arises, the team is ready to care for you.

A Special Care Nursery is available for babies who need a higher level of care. Babies born at Mayo Clinic Health System locations in Fairmont and New Prague needing Level 2 care are transferred to this nursery for a seamless transition of care.

Family Birth Center 3D tour

History & Milestones

Mankato Hospital Expansion and Modernization History and Milestones Plans for a hospital in Mankato began in 1950 with Sister M. Bartholomea of Milwaukee. She was the building director for the Sisters of Sorrowful Mother, so drafting the primary plans was her responsibility. The plans outlined a 200-bed, five-floor hospital with the ability to add a sixth floor in the future.

The "X" design of the original bed tower was chosen to allow for cross ventilation through the building as there was no air conditioning at that time and to minimize the time it would take to get food from the kitchen to the patient rooms.

The initial cost estimate by architects for constructing the original Mankato hospital was more than $1 million in 1950 and updated to $2 million at the time of the groundbreaking on May 11, 1950. The Minnesota governor, Luther Youngdahl, spoke at the groundbreaking ceremony to a crowd of 1,000 people. The facility ended up costing $4 million when it was completed in 1953.

After three years of construction, the new hospital opened for public tours on June 6 and 7, 1952. About 18,500 came to visit from all over southern Minnesota. The first patient was admitted to the hospital on June 7, 1953.

For 67 years, the hospital served the residents of Mankato and the surrounding areas. However, with time, ongoing infrastructure challenges and high demand for hospitalized care placed significant strain on the facility. Strategic planning began in 2020 for a new hospital bed tower. The project was approved by the Mayo Clinic Board of Trustees in February 2022.

Key project milestones

Sept. 2021 – Strategic planning presentation

Feb. 2022 – Board of Trustees approval and public announcement

March 2022 – Site preparation and crane installation begins

May 2022 – Groundbreaking

November 2022 – Top the Tower event

May 2023 – Unveiling of Washington Elementary School art mural

June 2023 – Raise a Glass event

October. 2023 – Exterior enclosure complete

Jan. 2024 – Fourth floor construction complete

February 2024 – Fifth floor construction complete

March 2024 – Sixth floor construction complete

April 2024 – Fourth and fifth floor occupancy

May 2024 – Sixth floor occupancy

By the numbers

$155 million investment in Mankato community

121 additional patient beds

59% increase in patient capacity when fully staffed

45+ miles of electrical conduit

130 different crew members across eight companies are working on the project

168+ miles of electrical wire

358 window panels on the curtainwall, including 204 unique in size

715 gallons of structural sealant were used to hold the glass and panels

800 new doors

900 corner guards

1,000 gallons of fire protection and sound attenuating products

1,700+ steel beams

2000+ pieces of glass

2,500 gallons of paint, enough to paint a 6" strip from Mankato to Kansas City

4,000 labor hours worked

5,200 gallons of finishing compound

25,000 square feet of wall coverings

560,000 lineal feet of steel studs hoisted by tower crane — over 150 miles

870,000 square feet of gypsum product — enough to cover 15 football fields including end zones

1.5 million fasteners driven by hand — average 157 per hour, 24/7 for 13 months, laid end-to-end equaling about 35 miles

10 million pounds of concrete poured — equivalent to 25 Antarctic blue whales or 825 elephants

12.5 million lumens in the project light fixtures — enough to light 300 homes

“As we thought about opening our bed tower we thought about how else can we serve our patients and improve the quality of care. And obviously every patient that comes to the hospital has a medication, so the pharmacy was obviously looked at as an opportunity to improve,” said Perry Sweeten.

The pharmacy comes equipped with sterile work areas, temperature controlled storage, and digital cataloguing on a carousel system to give the hospital everything it needs now and will need once the expansion is complete, and pharmacy planners say that the facility is the new standard for the entire hospital system.

“From a Mayo Clinic perspective this is probably the flagship right now. It was designed to give great ideas to other pharmacies that are being built in the future,” said Sweeten.

The number of people diagnosed with cancer is increasing at an alarming rate. In fact, 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. With annual cancer rates around the world expected to increase to 29.5 million by 2040, the need for more breakthrough research and innovative treatments is greater than ever before.

To meet this challenge, The University of Kansas Cancer Center will break ground on a world-class patient care and cancer research building that will be a global-destination cancer center. Our goal is to become a destination for ground-breaking new therapies, leading-edge collaborative research and lifesaving therapies for cancer patients.

The new building will be located on the 39th and Rainbow campus, with construction slated to begin in spring 2025.

This 21st century cancer center will enable us, as the region’s only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center and 1 of fewer than 60 nationwide, to change and save more lives. It will also dramatically transform cancer patient care and research – and Kansas City as a regional and national destination for the most advanced cancer care.

 Henry Ford Health officially broke ground Thursday on its $2.2 billion expansion in the city's New Center area, a project that will include a new hospital with an emergency department, operating rooms, intensive care units, a rehabilitation clinic, and a 20-story patient tower.

Hospital officials and state and local leaders celebrated the occasion at a groundbreaking ceremony at the future hospital site on West Grand Boulevard west of M-10, directly across the street from Henry Ford's main campus. The project is expected to take five years to complete and the new hospital will see its first patients by the end of 2029, Henry Ford Health said.

Henry Ford's existing hospitals will continue to operate and eventually connect to the new facility through a series of bridges. The new 75,000-square-foot emergency department, which will be double the size of the current emergency room, will feature a fast-track service area to address urgent care-type issues. This idea came from conversations with neighbors, Brooks-Williams said. It will also contain 100 private treatment spaces.
The 20-story patient tower will also feature 432 individual patient rooms, with space for visitors, as well as new technology enhancements including voice activation, touchscreens, and 75-inch smart televisions, according to the news release.
The facility will also include 28 operating rooms capable of handling nearly every kind of complex surgical case, and five floors will be dedicated to specialized intensive care unit rooms ranging from cardiovascular to neurological, according to Henry Ford Health officials.

Monologue:

Client wants to visualize the wedding halls with its new interior alterations done by Hoffman Grayson Architects before execution of design.

Dialogue:

Interior specifications were provided by the interior design manager as per client’s requirement. The rendering is done by creating all interior elements from the scratch.

Elements:

ArchiCAD, Cinerender, Photoshop and Web specifications brochures.

Lesson Learned:

Rendering Specifications.

Client:

Richard Monty.

Monologue:

YMCA Huntington board of directors want to visualize the proposed structure to share with their members and advertising committee.

Dialogue:

Exterior material specifications were provided by the design team . The renderings are done by creating all interior and exterior elements from the scratch.

Elements:

ArchiCAD, Cinerender, Photoshop and Web specifications brochures.

Lesson Learned:

Rendering Specifications.

Client:

YMCA

Monologue:

Owner of the Landmark Theater has decided to renovate interiors of the existing theater by implementing new elements inside.

Dialogue:

Interior specifications were provided by the interior design manager as per client’s requirement. The rendering were done by creating all interior elements from the scratch.

Elements:

ArchiCAD, Cinerender, Photoshop and Web specifications brochures.

Lesson Learned:

Rendering Specifications.

Client:

LANDMARK THEATER

Monologue:

Family living in London purchased an old dilapidated structure in Huntington. The challenge was to keep an existing structural framing which are in good condition by adding an additional floor above.

Dialogue:

After two discussions with the client, requirements were almost finalized. The front porch was repaired by adding additional posts and re-framing of floor joists. Bathroom was relocated from living space to have an open connection between living and dining area. Kitchen area will be expanded by demolishing the wall between kitchen and family room. Existing staircase will be relocated on the front side, at entrance Foyer. Laundry room will be added in new proposal.

Elements:

Wood Frame Construction.

Lesson Learned:

Client discussion, Building permit application and Wood frame construction.

Client:

Alice chechkin.

Monologue:

The single family residence owner Ivan, wanted to have a kitchen and living space addition for their extended family.

Dialogue:

While following the client’s requirement, the initial design was finalized after second discussion with the owner. The new design needed to have a planning variance and legalizing the existing ‘Shed’. The 45 feet single roof structure was a challenge within itself for new proposal. Redesigning has been done after the first submission at Building Department.

Elements:

Wood Frame Construction.

Lesson Learned:

Building permit and variance requirement at Syosset, Roof Designing and Zoning Board Presentation.

Client:

Ivan and Mary Ann Listnizer.

Monologue:

Existing commercial building on Main Street Huntington is turning into residential apartments on the second floor. The owner of 355 NY Avenue wanted us to design one bedroom apartments on second floor as new proposal.

Dialogue:

A simple apartment addition becomes complex when it comes within change of occupancy and residential bylaws. The residential apartment proposal involves intense code analysis and Health Department reviews.

Elements:

Wood Frame Construction.

Lesson Learned:

Building permit application, Health department application and Wood frame construction.

Client:

Larry Webburger.

Monologue:

Existing Dentist Clinic is converting into a place of Worship (Church).

Dialogue:

The requirements of client were fairly simple. He required an assembly area for weekly gatherings and an office space for staff. So as per client’s requirement the existing first floor area of dental clinic will be converted into a place of worship and the basement will be converted into a office and storage area.

Elements:

Wood.

Lesson Learned:

Building permit application and Wood frame construction.

Client:

Carlos Malodalo.

Monologue:

The two story house at Catherwood Crescent had fire damage on March 2017. The client wanted to renovate the house by adding few elements on the second flood and a finish basement.

Dialogue:

By reusing the maximum structural elements, an entire kitchen was redesigned for new addition. The single bathroom on second floor was convert into two and the new deck was added at back portion. As a part of renovation the unfinished basement was converted into finished basement with separate activity area and Laundry room.

Elements:

Wood Frame Construction.

Lesson Learned:

Separate fees for burned property. Reusing the existing elements. Separate permit for the wooden deck.

Client:

Michel.

Monologue:

TruMedic store, sales pain management and stress relief products. The client required an organize space to display their products with a unique facade which blends into the surroundings yet have its own texture.

Dialogue:

As per client’s requirement an element of angular glass is added to the front facade, which allows the visitors to have a glimpse of inside activities, allowing a visual connection between the space and an Individual.

Elements:

Wood, Glass and Steel.

Lesson Learned:

Code analysis, discussion with structural engineer, started construction drawings, and discussion with building department.

Client:

Russ and Tony ( TruMedic ).

Monologue:

Monologue: Converting existing hair salon into American Mattress store.

Dialogue:

Keeping existing elements intact, American Matters store is designed by adding accessible bathroom and new interior elements.

Elements:

Wood Construction.

Lesson Learned:

Building permit application and Wood frame construction.

Client:

Anthony Rizzo