Dozens of families from the Youngstown-Warren area took part in “A Children’s Holiday” tree lighting and anniversary celebration at Akron Children’s Beeghly campus.
The event featured cocoa, carols, face painting, cookie and ornament decorating, and a ceremonial groundbreaking for the $18.6 million building expansion project on the Beeghly campus.
A few patients assisted with the tree lighting and groundbreaking, and Santa Claus made an appearance as children sang Jingle Bells around the tree.
Hospital executives marked the occasion with exciting details about growth at the Beeghly campus.
“I remember breaking the news 7 years ago about our plans for the Beeghly campus, confident that we were building on a firm foundation of quality pediatric care,” said Akron Children’s CEO and President Bill Considine during remarks at the event. “When we opened the doors to Mahoning Valley’s only pediatric hospital, we fulfilled our promise to bring high-quality care closer to home, and now we are building on that promise.”
Beeghly campus expansion plans
The 4-phase expansion project will include a 2-story addition to Building A, renovations to portions of the current building, and a new entrance for the Beeghly campus that will improve how families access the services at the hospital.
Overall, the first phase of the project will add 47 exam rooms, including subspecialty and primary care.
The services relocating to this new building include: allergy, genetics, cardiology, general surgery, gastroenterology, neonatolgy, nephrology, neurology, orthopedics, physiatry, plastics and reconstructive surgery, pulmonology, sports medicine and urology.
In addition, the hospital will offer a new service, sports rehabilitation.
“We are excited to break ground and begin expanding our offerings for patients,” said Sharon Hrina, vice president of Akron Children’s Mahoning Valley. “The goals of this expansion are to improve access for families, increase our primary care capacity, relocate specialty services from the Boardman Medical Pavilion to the Beeghly campus, build our capacity for growth and consolidate our clinics. We have been in this community for a long time and we are happy to invest and show that Akron Children’s will be here for many years to come.”
