Citing increased patient need, Mayo Clinic in Arizona will nearly double the size of its Phoenix campus with a five-year building project set to cost $648 million.
The construction project, which officials say will add 2,000 jobs by 2029, is the largest expansion in not-for-profit Mayo Clinic’s 30-year history in Arizona.
The construction is not expected to disrupt patient care at the north Phoenix campus, Mayo Clinic in Arizona CEO Dr. Wyatt Decker said.
An increased need for complex patient care is driving the massive expansion, he said.
“We feel our niche is in the very, very sick, very complicated or very rare,” Decker said. “We focus on where we add the most societal benefit.”
Examples of complex patient care include rare, advanced or difficult-to-treat cancers, organ transplants, cardiovascular diseases and medical mysteries. Mayo Clinic in Arizona also does half of all the solid organ transplants that occur in the state and is the fifth-largest transplant center in the United States.
Details of the expansion
The capital improvement project, announced Wednesday, will include, among other elements, a six-story patient tower that will increase the number of patient beds from 280 to 374 by 2023.
The expansion also will add a new emergency department, an outpatient surgery center and a 1,000-space underground patient parking garage, among other improvements to its 210-acre campus located near Loop 101 and 56th Street in North Phoenix.
The project will add 1.4 million square feet of building space to the existing 1.7 million, officials said.
“My question is who is going to fill all those beds, and are they going to change their payer mix to include more Medicaid and Medicare Advantage patients?,” said Jim Hammond, CEO and publisher of The Hertel Report, a newsletter about health care that focuses on Arizona.
“It would seem they are betting on more traditional Medicare and commercial insurance — they must think that market is going to grow.”
