Arkansas Children's Hospital provided this photo of the site of its planned $100 million hospital in Springdale. The site, donated by the George family, is near Arvest Ballpark, the home field for the Northwest Arkansas Naturals
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and the Walmart Foundation announced Monday that they are donating $8 million to Arkansas Children’s Hospital’s northwest Arkansas hospital, now under construction in Springdale.
“The gift is incredibly important to our project,” Marcy Doderer, president and CEO of Arkansas Children’s Hospital, told Arkansas Business Monday. “We are grateful that Wal-Mart and the Walmart Foundation have stepped up to help support the project with their gift.”
The $167 million, 233,613-SF hospital is expected to open in January 2018. The hospital will have 24 inpatient beds, an emergency department with five operating rooms and a helipad with refueling station. The hospital campus will also include walking trails and gardens. Doderer said the operating cost over the first five years will be around $250 million.
“We are proud to be investing in the health and wellness of families and children in northwest Arkansas,” Kathleen McLaughlin, chief sustainability officer at Wal-Mart and president of the Walmart Foundation, said in an Arkansas Children’s Hospital news release. “Walmart is committed to strengthening the local communities in which we operate, and having a children’s hospital in this region is a huge step forward.”
Doderer said ACH has had “good success” in fundraising for the project, and expects to make more announcements about donations in the next few weeks.
Arkansas Children’s Hospital announced the project in August, part of a plan to expand services across the state.
Last year, the hospital completed a massive five-year strategic planning session that focused on three goals: improving child health, expanding the hospital’s reach and achieving top-tier status. It will target five service areas for growth: cardiac services, neurosciences, hematology/oncology, pulmonary and endocrine.
“Our desire to build a facility — really a destination for wellness for families in northwest Arkansas — is part of our broader strategy of a statewide network of care,” Doderer said. “Our intention is to ensure that we can improve both access to health care and improve health” to the more than 700,000 children in the state.
The architect on the hospital project is Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects of Little Rock and FKP Architects of Houston. The general contractor is Nabholz Construction Corp. of Conway.
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