Penn's Health System might be on its way to a $1.5 billion upgrade, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported last week.
Penn Medicine — which encompasses the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, the Perelman School of Medicine and other local hospitals — is currently in the planning stages of development on a new hospital tower, which would be constructed on the site of the existing Penn Tower. According to the Journal, Penn has reached out to architectural firms to see if they would be interested in undertaking the project.
The Journal reported that the new tower is estimated to cost $1.5 billion and would be built in multiple phases over the next several years. The potential tower would greatly expand HUP's capacity to host patients: It would contain 700 patient beds and 50 operating tables, nearly doubling HUP’s bed count, according to the Journal.
Despite speculation on the details of the proposed tower, representatives from Penn Medicine claim that it is still very much in the early stages of production.
Susan Phillips, a spokeswoman for Penn Medicine, stated that as of now the “Penn Medicine project is in the planning and feasibility stages at the moment. ?We work closely with the University on all construction projects, but nothing has been approved as yet.”
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