Banner Plans Women’s Tower Expansion in Mesa

By Tasha Anderson for AZBEX 
Banner Health is planning a five-story medical tower expansion at their Desert Medical Center Campus at the SEC of Southern Avenue and Dobson Road in Mesa. 
Plans were recently submitted to the city and were discussed at its Design Review Board meeting on December 15th. 
According to the project’s narrative, the project, called the Banner Desert Medical Center (BDMC) Women’s Tower Expansion, will be a vertical expansion to the current two-story Cardon Children’s Medical Center. It will include a build out of five stories to include approximately 149.2KSF of space to the campus. 
“The tower will house Labor & Delivery services and additional Medical-Surgical patient rooms,” the documents state. The expansion will add 168 new patient beds to the campus. 
“The tower expansion will be built over the existing north wing, two-story bow-tie shaped structure,” the documents go on to explain. “The new third floor of the tower follows the existing structural grid of the bow-tie shaped floors below and serves as a transition level for the structure to a rectangular grid for the floors above.” 
The project will also include tenant improvements to a third-floor shell space of the Cardon Children’s Medical Center to add 24 (out of the 168) patient beds; a remodel of approximately 27.8KSF which includes a relocation of the “Sophie’s Place” and “Forever Young Zone” to the first and third floor lobbies; and a 2.5KSF security area tenant improvement in an undetermined location. 
The current security building and the 2415 Building are expected to be demolished and replaced with underground retention and surface parking. The documents state that parking will be added in three locations, providing for a total of 425 additional parking spaces to the campus. The “Big Outside” will be rebuilt under the new tower addition, central plant upgrades will be done and the existing LDR port cochere will be demolished. 
The project was first announced at Banner’s Annual Capital Planning Meeting in August 2019 and was previously known as the BDMC New Tower. It still needs to go before the City of Mesa’s Planning Commission and City Council for approval. Construction is anticipated to begin in early 2021.