McLaren Health Care today announced it will consolidate its two current Lansing hospital facilities into a new $450 million campus adjacent to Michigan State University in South Lansing. (Photo courtesy of McLaren Health Care)
LANSING, Mich. McLaren Health Care today announced it will consolidate its two current Lansing hospital facilities into a new $450 million campus adjacent to Michigan State University in South Lansing. Additionally, the health care system and MSU announced they will expand partnerships on research, education, and clinical services.
“We intend to redesign the traditional hospital and ambulatory care settings to build the safest, most efficient health care campus in the world,” said Tom Mee, President and CEO, McLaren Greater Lansing. “This project isn’t just about bricks and mortar; this is about reinventing health care delivery. The campus and the actual processes of care will be designed by our nationally recognized researchers, clinicians, nurses, technicians, physicians, the people who support the delivery of health care, and—most importantly—our patients. Our goal is to provide such outstanding health care services that no one needs to seek treatment outside of the Greater Lansing area.”
The new health care campus will be developed on land purchased from the MSU Foundation in its University Corporate Research Park, located between Collins Road and US 127. The campus will house a 240-bed state-of-the-art hospital, cancer center, ambulatory care center, and other facilities to support health care delivery, educational opportunities, and medical research. When fully complete, this comprehensive health care campus will be home to more than 1,000 physicians, researchers, educators and other members of the academic and medical team. The current estimated timeline to open the facilities is late 2021.
“This is truly a defining moment in McLaren’s growth as the leading statewide clinical and insurance enterprise. This is an extraordinary opportunity to collaborate with MSU to redesign and elevate health care for a region and the state for generations to come,” said Philip A. Incarnati, President and CEO of McLaren Health Care. “Our partnership will transform health care delivery to support a world-class medical experience and advance pioneering medical research.”
MSU and McLaren agreed to collaborate on a number of initiatives to advance the university’s academic, research, and clinical care missions including:
• Access to data to accelerate clinical research efforts of MSU and McLaren,
• Recruitment of researchers, physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants to the MSU HealthTeam and University,
• Support for team-based learning philosophies in the design and workflow of the facilities to create a world-class medical education experience,
• Cooperation on clinical trials through MSU’s Institutional Review Board to provide patients with the latest clinical therapies and treatments,
• Collaboration on multiple clinical service lines to bring higher quality, more efficient care to the community, and more.
“MSU has long enjoyed a close relationship with McLaren, and this new collaboration allows us to explore additional partnerships to jointly deliver health care services, further medical education, and advance medical research,” MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon said. “Working with McLaren, this new facility will help us recruit top physicians and researchers to our region by providing access to tools and data that will build a healthier society and develop new life-saving therapies and treatments.”
An estimated 2,500 jobs will be created to construct the health care campus. McLaren expects to add approximately 80 employees to its workforce when the campus opens, in addition to filling about 75 current full- and part-time openings at the hospital.
Mee stated McLaren is committed to using union labor and Lansing-based organizations to construct the facilities whenever possible. “Part of McLaren’s dedication to our community on this project is to provide opportunities for Lansing companies and workers to help build a community resource for generations to come,” said Mee.
Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero noted the project represents one of the largest investments in the City of Lansing ever and will stimulate significant regional economic growth. “McLaren’s nearly half billion dollar investment in South Lansing is one of the largest investments ever made in our city and comes at a time when more and more businesses are looking hard at locating in our region,” Mayor Bernero said. “This project will not only create thousands of jobs for Lansing-area residents, but it will also act as a catalyst for significant regional economic development and attract talent from around the globe.”
McLaren’s current facilities along Pennsylvania Avenue and on Greenlawn Avenue, some of which date to the 1930s, will be redeveloped as part of the project. Additional details concerning this redevelopment will be provided over the next several months. “McLaren is committed to finding solutions to redeveloping our existing campuses for the betterment of the community,” said Mee. “We are already working with the Lansing Economic Area Partnership to identify innovative ways and new partners to help redevelop the campuses, create additional jobs for the city, and improve the region.”
The University Corporate Research Park offered an ideal location for McLaren’s investment, according to Daniel Medrano, Vice President of Facility Management for McLaren Health Care. “The University Corporate Research Park property is unique because it is situated at the crossroads of South Lansing and Michigan State University,” Medrano said. “It’s not often that a development of this magnitude can have such a positive impact on so many municipalities and organizations. McLaren’s investment will be a tremendous benefit to the City of Lansing, Lansing Township, the City of East Lansing, the MSU Foundation, Michigan State University, and the entire region.”
University Corporate Research Parks serve the communities in which they reside in unexpected ways, linking thinkers, innovators, and researchers to the marketplace of ideas.
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