Leaders and supporters of the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital recently came together for a groundbreaking ceremony to celebrate the initial building of a 127,000-square-foot surgical tower slated for completion in 2024. The tower is part of the hospital’s next phase master facility plan. Among those attending the ceremony were hospital namesakes Jack and Barbara Nicklaus, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Miami-Dade County Chief Operations Officer Jimmy Morales.
“We are beaming with pride as we celebrate the groundbreaking of the new surgical tower,” Matthew A. Love says, president and CEO of Nicklaus Children’s Health System, the hospital’s parent organization. “The tower will strengthen our legacy as the number one children’s hospital in Florida and the premier center for delivering the best surgical care to the children of our community, our state and around the world.”
The new surgical tower will enable the hospital to construct new state-of-the-art operating suites to replace existing operating rooms, which lack the size and ceiling height to fully accommodate the latest equipment. The new facility will include augmented reality during surgery, virtual reality surgical planning and will also offer spacious and private pre-and post-surgical care spaces for the children and families it serves.
“We are honored to be here to make history with the groundbreaking of the surgical tower,” golf Icon Jack Nicklaus and his wife, Barbara said in a statement. “The planned new state-of-the art surgical suites have been on the hospital’s “wish list” for many years and we know the tower is going to fill an important need for the children of South Florida and around the globe.”
Nicklaus Children’s is the only specialty-licensed children’s hospital in South Florida. Its Specialty Hospitals for Children include Nicklaus Children’s, John Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, Wolfson Children’s Hospital and Nemours Children’s Health, the only four hospitals with a specialty-license designation by the state and the only Florida hospitals that solely provide and invest in care for children.
The surgical tower at Nicklaus Children’s will be a companion to its Advanced Pediatric Care Pavilion, a 217,000-square-foot, six-story bed tower housing the hospital’s three intensive care units (pediatric, neonatal and congenital heart) as well as the hematology-oncology/bone marrow transplant and neurology units. The tower features spacious single-patient rooms, an intraoperative MRI and the latest medical technology.
