Eccles Foundation, LDS Church help Primary Children’s expand its reach

Primary Children's Medical Center has received $4 million from a local foundation and the LDS Church to help build a new outpatient service building across the street from the existing hospital.

In celebration of the hospital's 20th anniversary at its current location on the University of Utah campus, officials announced plans for the new George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Outpatient Services Building at a news conference Thursday. The facility will be the second addition to the hospital announced this year.

The Eccles Foundation has donated $3 million and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave $1 million toward construction of the new $120 million, 200,000-square-foot addition to the hospital campus. Primary Children's Chief Executive Officer Joe Mott said the hospital, which patients and staff moved to from an old facility in the Avenues neighborhood 20 years ago on Friday, has logged more than 1 million patient days, 280,000 surgeries and 672,000 emergency room visits in the past two decades.

The ever-increasing volume of patients and clinical needs at the hospital has now made the new building — which has been in the planning stages for several years — a necessity, Mott said. Last winter, there were six nights when the 271-bed facility accommodated 300 inpatients, he said. From 2003 to 2007, admissions grew by more than 19 percent.

Many of hospital's existing clinics will be moved to the new building, allowing an expansion of inpatient services and bed space, Mott said. Construction is set to begin "early next year," as the design and siting plans are still under way.

The University of Utah has agreed to a long-term lease for space west of the hospital, across Mario Capecchi Drive, and a skybridge will likely connect the two buildings. Occupancy is scheduled for 2013.

"Contributions like these from the Eccles Foundation and the LDS Church Foundation are instrumental in our ability to progress and to continue to provide the best pediatric health care possible," Mott said. "We are grateful for their generosity."

The event boosts the hospital's first capital campaign in 20 years, bringing it nearly halfway to its $20 million goal. Launched last year, The Child First and Always campaign has received more than $500,000 in support from Primary Children's employees.

Spencer F. Eccles, chairman and CEO of the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation, said he remembers well the day a $1 million donation from the foundation was announced to build the current facility.