New Patient Tower Looms

Clarian Health Partners Inc. could spend up to $500 million to build a new patient tower at its Methodist Hospital site in downtown Indianapolis. Financing would include a mix of donations, cash, and tax-exempt bonds.

The new facility could have up to 250 beds and have the goal of making all of Methodist’s rooms private, according to a report in the Indianapolis Business Journal. The project would start in 2012 and be completed by 2015.

Clarian, a six-hospital system that is a joint venture of Methodist Hospital and the Indiana University School of Medicine, last entered the bond market in May 2008 when it refinanced roughly $700 million of insured auction-rate securities. Later that year it postponed most of its major capital projects — estimated to total around $2 billion — after the markets collapsed.

“The downtown location is the best place for us to serve the six million people of Indiana,” Sam Odle, Clarian’s chief operating officer, was quoted as saying in local reports. “We’re modernizing all of our facilities and expanding those facilities to meet the patient demand.”

Indianapolis recently sold $671 million of bonds to finance the $734 million construction of a replacement facility for Wishard Hospital, Indianapolis’ main safety-net facility. The new hospital is scheduled to open in 2013.

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Healthcare industry
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