Froedtert Health plans to operate a new hospital campus at the former Wisconsin Heart Hospital in Wauwatosa.
The health system is planning to convert the shuttered building at 10000 W. Bluemound Road, which it
bought for $25 million from Ascension Wisconsin in July 2018, into an inpatient hospital, according to plans submitted to the city. The hospital is expected to open in the fall.
The 7.6-acre campus is located about a mile from Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin’s flagship academic medical center campus at the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center in Wauwatosa.
Floor plans indicate the first floor of the new facility would contain administration offices, a cafeteria, diagnostic imaging, a nursing unit, day surgery rooms and procedure rooms. The second floor would house inpatient rooms, a laboratory, a pharmacy, and physical therapy and surgical services.
The facility is anticipated to have 75 to 100 full-time equivalent employees, said John Balzer, vice president of facility planning and development in plans submitted to the city. The hospital will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The health system is working with Eppstein Uhen Architects on the project.
When the system purchased the hospital building in 2018, Cathy Jacobson, president and chief executive officer of Froedtert Health, said the acquisition was driven by the increased demand and capacity constraints at the health system’s flagship hospital.
Froedtert last year completed a four-floor expansion on top of its 12-story, 613,000-square-foot Center for Advanced Care,
which opened in October 2015, at the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center. The Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin network includes five hospitals and 40 health centers and clinic locations.
The former Wisconsin Heart Hospital building was formerly operated by Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare, which closed the facility in 2016, shortly after the health system became part of Ascension Wisconsin. The 30-bed campus, which opened in 2004 as a joint venture of the Covenant Healthcare System and a coalition of physicians and private investors, cost $44 million to build. Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare bought out its partners in 2006 and became sole owner of the Heart Hospital.
A public hearing is scheduled for Feb. 10 regarding the Froedtert project.
