Construction begins on largest project in UNMC history — a $2 billion health care, training and research facility

NU regents last week OK’d the first in a series of what are known as intermediate design reports for Project Health, a clinical learning center that would provide more — and more modern — space where UNMC faculty and staff can train the next generation of health care providers, care for Nebraskans, conduct research and offer clinical trials.

The approval means that after six years of discussions and planning, Omaha residents will begin seeing the start of construction on the site, said NU President Dr. Jeffrey Gold. The work will include digging and drilling for utilities, water and drainage systems and heavy building components such as elevator shafts.

The structure will be built on UNMC’s main campus on a now-vacant 7.5-acre site formerly occupied by JP Lord Elementary School and the Munroe-Meyer Institute, which relocated to Aksarben. The site is bounded by Farnam Street on the north, 44th Street to the east, Dewey Avenue to the South and Saddle Creek Road on the west. Several pieces of construction equipment were operating on the site this week.

“The philanthropic community, our partners in the state, and of course the health care community and the patients that we serve (and) the planning people that have been literally working for years on this, are ecstatic,” Gold said.

Project Health is the first phase of Project NExT, a joint effort of the university and Nebraska Medicine. It also would be the largest project in university history, exceeding the $370 million Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer that opened in June 2017.

An architect’s rendering depicts the new facility, which would sit north of the cancer center, as a sleek glass-fronted structure connected to nearby buildings by street-spanning overhead walkways. One connection would be the CORE, or Campus Operations and Research Excellence, Building, which is under construction on the southwest corner of Saddle Creek and Farnam. It will provide space for computer-based research and wet lab-based research for drug discovery, cancer research and other strategic topics.

University officials previously have estimated the new health care facility will comprise 18 to 20 floors above and below ground, with 15 floors likely visible, and stand between 380 and 400 feet tall. At that height, it would be several floors taller than the cancer center.

Dr. H. Dele Davies, UNMC’s interim chancellor, said in a statement that the project will allow UNMC to add nearly 200 more students in health professions each year at a time when health care workforce shortages are prevalent across the state.

About 30% of the new space would be reserved for teaching and research. That’s lacking in existing facilities, which now are more than 70 years old.

The regents’ approval comes with authorization to spend an additional $50 million on the next phase of work. The current report is the first of several that the regents will consider, with the next — which would authorize foundations — expected to come in January. A previous approval for planning included authorization to spend $50 million in existing philanthropic funds on design work.

University officials previously have discussed two other possible phases of Project NExT on the campus, one of which could be a new, federally funded in-patient veteran’s hospital.

Gold acknowledged that the Veteran’s Administration has not committed to such a project in Omaha.

But he reprised the proposal in March during his testimony before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Health, during which he spoke in support of a measure co-sponsored by Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb.

The measure, H.R. 217, would make permanent the CHIP-IN for Veterans Act, which allows the VA to develop and finance health care facilities through public-private partnerships.

Gold said the measure would create a vehicle that would allow the university and its collaborators to build a new VA hospital in partnership with the agency.

A new, modern VA hospital built on the UNMC campus, he told the subcommittee, could be directly connected to Project Health, ensuring seamless access to diagnostic, procedural and clinical trial services and offering the opportunity for a variety of other shared functions, such as laboratory resources.

It would be branded, staffed and operated by the VA, Gold said. But a state-of-the-art facility, leveraging private construction and adjacent resources, would be significantly more cost-effective than renovating or replacing the existing VA hospital that was opened in 1950.

Gold noted that an earlier version of the act allowed the construction of the new Ambulatory Care Center at the existing Omaha VA hospital near 42nd and Center Streets through just such a partnership. The clinic was built for $86 million, with $56 million in VA funds and $30 million from Heritage Omaha, the nonprofit involved in numerous local capital improvement projects.

Bacon said recently that the ambulatory clinic had been estimated to cost the VA $130 million. He credited donor dollars and local construction management for the savings.

“It’s one of the best facilities for vets in the country, and we did it for pennies on the dollar,” he said.

Bacon said he has been convinced by Gold that there could be greater savings if a VA hospital were built through a similar process and located on the UNMC campus.

He said both members of the House committee that oversees the VA and VA officials in Washington are also interested in the project because they can see how much taxpayers could save. HR 217 has been forwarded to the full Veterans Affairs committee for consideration but has not yet been voted on by the House.

“We want to do this again,” Bacon said. “We have an opportunity to get a state-of-the-art facility here. That’s my goal.”

Meanwhile, fundraising for the project continues, which will include private, state and city funding.

The state initially approved $300 million in 2020 and is included in the budget package of Nebraska Legislature’s appropriations committee under two legislative bills. The proposed package would begin to allocate it this biennium and disburse $50 million a year for the next six years.

Laura Strimple, a spokeswoman for Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, said in a statement that the governor “believes that it’s time for our state to invest deeply in our hospital infrastructure and a state-of-the-art facility.”

Pillen was a regent when the project was first envisioned and was treated at the Nebraska Medical Center earlier this year after he was injured in a horse-riding accident.

“As governor,” she said, “he has been a champion of this project and is pleased that the state will invest funds from the (Tobacco Settlement Fund) to support it.”

World-Herald staff writer Henry J. Cordes contributed to this report.