IU Health Bloomington changes course on hospital relocation

The new hospital will be part of a partnership with IU that will boost the university's growing health sciences and technology sectors.

The new in-patient hospital, as well as an ambulatory center, will be built on 75 acres off the bypass at the current location of the IU golf driving range, according to IU Health and university officials. The 18-hole championship golf course will not be affected by the construction of the new IU Health Bloomington Hospital. The driving range will be moved to the par 3 course, which currently is adjacent to the driving range.

IU plans to build a new medical education building next to the hospital, to allow current health programs and academic research can relocate and expand in collaboration with the hospital.

Additional information was provided at a 9 a.m. news conference, which hospital officials, Mayor Mark Kruzan and IU President Michael McRobbie attended.

“There are not too many across the country. You’re either a complete academic health center, or down here with a community hospital or regional hospital. We’re kind of meeting in the middle,” Mark Moore, president of IU Health Bloomington, said in a briefing with the H-T. “It’s more than just co-locating buildings. It’s truly coming together in a way that we never could have done by ourselves.”

The announcement comes two months after the IU Health system board of directors determined that constructing a replacement hospital at the Bloomington location on West Second Street would cost more money and take more time than building a new facility from the ground up. IU Health Bloomington owns 85 acres off of Curry Park in a development called North Park, and that property was speculated to be where the hospital would move. IU Health Bloomington officials never confirmed any prospective locations for the new facility until today.