By Matt Kelly

By Mike Higgins

Dr. Nancy McDaniel, medical director of the CMC, holds one of her patients, Romaro Branden.

As part of its Health System masterplan, the University will build a $47 million Children’s Medical Center at the corner of West Main Street and Jefferson Park Avenue, where the Blake Center is currently located. R. Edward Howell, vice president and chief executive officer of the Medical Center, and University Architect David J. Neuman unveiled the plan at a community briefing June 15.

The new building will consolidate the center’s outpatient and rehabilitation services under one roof. Inpatient services will continue to be provided on the seventh floor of the University Hospital, which will be connected to the center by a covered walkway.

While the construction start date is dependent on fundraising efforts now under way, groundbreaking for the 160,000-square-foot facility is expected to occur in four or five years.

The new building will consolidate several existing services — including the Kluge Children’s Rehabilitation Center located on Route 250 West — that have been offered from various locations around Charlottesville. A short-stay unit for overnight observation, a post-operation observation unit, a pediatric cancer infusion center and outpatient clinics for children with autism, cerebral palsy and diabetes will also find a home in the new facility.

“It is difficult for parents with children who have special health care needs, because [now] they have to go so many different places [to receive care],” said Dr. Robert L. Chevalier, Benjamin Armistead Shepherd Professor and chairman of the Department of Pediatrics. The Children’s Medical Center sees about 60,000 outpatients and between 3,000 to 4,000 admitted patients a year, Chevalier said. About 95 percent of CMC patients are from Virginia.

The Medical Center has already committed about $10 million to the Children’s Medical Center building project, leaving $37 million to be raised through private donations.

Architects Stanley Beaman & Sears of Atlanta have been hired to design the four-story center, which Chevalier said will be a “showplace,” citing their work in Chicago, Atlanta and Augusta, Ga.

A MASTER PLAN FOR THE HEALTH SYSTEM

Community members got a preview of the U.Va. Health System’s new architectural master plan at a briefing June 15.In addition to the creation of a new Children’s Medical Center building in the vicinity of the Corner district, the plan also includes the construction of the following new facilities:

• Core Laboratory. The University is now navigating the City of Charlottesville’s permit process — a necessary step to building a General Clinical Research Center Core Laboratory, which will test human samples such as blood and urine, at the corner of West Main and 11th streets. In April, the Board of Visitors approved the design for the lab, which is currently located on the second floor of the Medical Center and needs to be moved to accommodate hospital expansion. The new 12,000-square-foot lab will replace some existing buildings, while preserving Preston House, a historic landmark on West Main Street that currently houses a bank.

• Cancer Center. A 130,000-square-foot Cancer Center, estimated to cost between $65 million and $70 million, is being planned. The center will offer many services the hospital offers now, such as radiation, oncology and the breast center, but the services will be concentrated in one place, with new equipment.

• Parking Garages. The existing West Parking Garage will be demolished to make room for the Cancer Center. The 331 spaces lost to the demolition will be replaced by a new 1,200-space North Parking Garage planned for the parking lot behind the Blake Center. Groundbreaking is scheduled for early summer 2005.

• New Street. Preliminary plans are under discussion for a possible new street along the Norfolk and Western Railroad tracks from either Shamrock or Maywood streets up to Crispell Drive to relieve traffic pressure on Jefferson Park Avenue. Funding for the extension road is included in a $51 million request for federal transportation money to fund, among other things, a parking garage for the South Lawn Project. The transportation reauthorization bill is currently being debated in a House/Senate conference committee.