Major healthcare developments are cropping up all over the metro, totaling at least $2 billion over the next few years
Data centers aren’t the only property type experiencing a building boom with mega-dollar price tags and large-scale construction projects. Healthcare facilities are too.
Hospitals and medical building projects have been expanding at a rapid clip, with $28.4 billion in new hospital starts in 2026 and another $30.7 billion across the greater Kansas City area in 2027, according to a ConstructConnect report released at the beginning of the year.
The stress of Covid-19 forced hospital systems to reevaluate their real estate, and many determined that maintenance and upgrades had been deferred too long, stated trade publication Health Facilities Management’s annual Hospital Construction Survey. After assessments, administrators saw “an increased need for more acute care patient beds, driven by the aging baby boomer population.”
Meanwhile, hospitals across the country saw their new construction budgets jump 45 percent from the previous year, while renovation budgets jumped 59 percent, the construction survey revealed.
The metro is no stranger to these trends, with nearly every major hospital system in the metro taking on major capital-improvement projects. Construction in the area resembles the national picture: 39 percent of all new nationwide space is devoted to behavioral and psychiatric health, 31 percent is going toward cancer treatment, and another 31 percent is for children’s hospitals.
For their part, Children’s Mercy and University Health are making very visible changes to the “Hospital Hill” area just south of Downtown KCMO, which is home to the flagship facilities of both organizations.
But expansions and new developments represent a much larger geographic swath around the metro, in both Kansas and Missouri, from Lee’s Summit to the Northland.
Children’s Mercy in $1B Capacity Boost
No stranger to major capital projects, Children’s Mercy took things a step further at the end of April when plans came out for a Downtown KCMO tower that could cost upward of $1 billion, the largest project in the organization’s history.
Planned on its current Adele Hall campus, just south of downtown, the new facility is projected to increase Children’s Mercy’s capacity by up to 30 percent by 2031, when management expects to complete the project. The new tower will house new spaces for the hospital’s pediatric and neonatal intensive care units.
To the south and across the state line in Overland Park, Children’s Mercy began work on a $150 million-plus renovation of Children’s Mercy Kansas on 110th Street. Work is set for completion next year on a medical office building for outpatient clinics, with larger renovations on the full facility ending sometime in 2029.
KU Med Builds Big Against Cancer
Humanity’s fight against cancer is The University of Kansas Health System’s leading capital improvement project’s primary priority. At a price tag of $450 million, the facility, underway and expected to open in the fall of 2027, is part of KU Med’s main campus, at 39th Street and Rainbow Boulevard in KCK.
Totaling 675,000 square feet over eight stories, the Cancer Center, which broke ground in May of 2025, will couple patient care with a research facility, including more than 230,000 square feet of lab space. Developed by KCMO-based JE Dunn Construction and designed by HDR, the facility will house a cellular therapeutics lab, as well as conduct several ongoing clinical trials on site. There are five center-invented treatments now in clinical trials, according to KU.
Big chunks of financing for the cancer center include $100 million from the Sunderland Foundation and $141 million in congressional spending secured by Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). The center’s funding was fueled in part by the 2022 designation of KU Med as the region’s only National Cancer Institute-designated facility.
HCA Expands Facilities Across State Lines
HCA Midwest Health’s leadership is busy with multi-million expansions at its hospitals in both Missouri and Kansas.
In April, the healthcare provider opened a $36.5 million, 78,000-square-foot building dedicated to nursing at its Research Medical Center main campus on KCMO’s East Side. A few miles away, at the Research Medical Center–Brookside Campus, HCA is building a $35 million 20,000-square-foot emergency room, scheduled to open by the end of the year.
Outside of KCMO, HCA is busy in Independence, where it’s expanding Centerpoint Medical Center, adding 36 surgical and medical beds on the eighth floor of its north tower for $23 million. The facelift, expected for completion next year, will see the occupation of space intentionally left vacant for future growth when the tower opened in 2017.
Further south, in suburban Lee’s Summit, HCA is spending $60 million on an expansion that is adding 21,000 square feet, including 26 inpatient beds and two new nursing facilities. HCA, which expects to wrap up work in Lee’s Summit by the end of next year, will also redesign the emergency room and increase that department’s bed count from 13 to 22.
Over in Kansas at the Overland Park Regional Medical Center, HCA is undertaking a two-phase project expansion at its Johnson County facility. Last year, leadership broke ground on a $40 million project expanding its surgical department by 3,000 square feet, while adding new operating rooms, pre-op and post-anesthesia-care bays. The completion of the surgery expansion at the end of 2027 will coincide with the beginning of an $80 million project, set for completion in 2030, that will include improvements to the neonatal department, a relocation of the hospital’s helipad, and improved emergency room access and services for inpatients.
Swope Health’s Village Underway
KCMO’s Swope Health is transforming 12 acres on the East Side’s 5900 Block of Swope Parkway into a $126 million facility targeting mental health and aging adult care.
KCMO-based McCownGordon is leading the construction of the multi-phased Swope Health Village, on which the developer broke ground in the summer of 2025 and will open in phases over the next several years. Included in the plans are 200 affordable seniors housing units and about 75 behavior health rooms “supported by comprehensive mental health services,” according to Swope Health’s fact sheet. Perkins Eastman, HFG Architecture and Moody Nolan are the architectural firms designing Swope Health Village.
Still in a capital campaign, Swope Health has so far received financial support from the City of KCMO, as well as $7.5 million from the American Rescue Plan Act.
University Health Committed to Hospital Hill, Psychiatric Care
Hospital Hill will have a new addition next year when University Health opens its Healthcare Delivery and Innovation Building at 25th and Charlotte streets. Totaling five stories and 160,000 square feet at a $145 million development cost, the facility will feature dental clinics, labs and offices. The Sunderland Foundation and Hall Family Foundation were big donors to the project. McCownGordon is leading construction while RDG Planning & Design is the lead architect.
Another significant project underway in University Health’s portfolio is a $300 million, 300,000-square-foot Kansas City Mental Health Facility the organization will operate for the Missouri Department of Mental Health. The 200-plus bed facility, going up in the historic Northeast neighborhood’s former Belvidere Park on Independence Avenue is set for completion in 2028.
Carehouse Makes More Room
On a smaller scale, also in an underserved East Side community, Care Beyond the Boulevard is expanding its Carehouse facility (5100 E. Linwood Blvd., KCMO), increasing its room count from the current 16 to 39 at a $6 million price tag. The ADA-compliant rooms treat wounds and provide psychiatric and medication services.
