St. Joseph Mercy Oakland Breaks Ground for New Tower

The skyline on the outskirts of Bloomfield Township will get a significant facelift as plans for a new St. Joseph Mercy Oakland hospital patient tower take shape.

Local business and hospital leaders officially broke ground on the $129 million South Patient Tower project at an invitation only event Tuesday at the site in Pontiac. Once completed, the eight-story facility at 44405 Woodward Ave., just north of Square Lake Road, will have more than 200 rooms with enhanced technology.

That allows for greater patient comfort and care as each room will have the latest innovations available for clinical staff, said Heidi Press, spokeswoman for St. Joseph Health System.

The new patient rooms are targeted for medical/surgical patients and will replace existing rooms that are smaller and cannot accommodate patient families or new medical and communications technology.

The improvements, expected to be complete in 2013, will make the hosptial the second-largest facility in the healthcare provider's network in southeast Michigan, behind only Ann Arbor.

Other highlights of the project include:

• Dedicated elevators for patient transport, visitors, food delivery  and clean and soiled laundry to prevent the spread of germs.
• Aesthetic elements giving the tower a softer, modern image.
• Physical pathways between the tower and other campus buildings to create safe and secure connections for patients, visitors and clinical staff.
• A newly designed lobby enhanced with contemporary artwork, an atrium and indoor gardens.
• A new 355-space visitor parking lot.

Other related construction activities include:

• A new gated, secured and illuminated associate parking lot on the east side of Woodward Avenu.
• New physician parking lot.
• Fox Center demolition.
• Creation of a new ring road around the main hospital.
• Pedestrian bridge over Woodward Avenue that connects the associate parking lot to the main hospital.