Children's Hospital plans big expansion on Eastside

Seattle-based Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center is looking to buy 3 to 5 acres of land in Bellevue to build pediatric-specialty offices, a plan that would increase the hospital's presence on the Eastside seven times over.

Plans are for 50,000 square feet of offices within three years and up to 100,000 square feet in the next decade. The space is intended to give Eastside families as many outpatient services as they'd find at Children's main campus in the Laurelhurst area of Seattle.

President and Chief Executive Thomas Hansen said he recognizes the Eastside's population is growing while traffic congestion worsens.

"Many of our families live on the Eastside," Hansen said. "The bridges are kind of formidable at certain times of the day, and traffic's not getting any better."

Hansen said he also hopes that with more doctors and nurses in Bellevue, families will spend less time in waiting rooms.

Children's expects to spend about $40 million on the land and new offices. It will get the money from hospital reserve funds and clinical operations

The hospital leases 14,000 square feet for a clinic at the Overlake Hospital Medical Center campus in Bellevue, where it handles 8,000 to 9,000 patients a year. Children's is likely to double that number after the first phase of development is done, spokeswoman Susan Macek said.

Children's does not provide in-patient care at its Bellevue offices — that is offered only at its main campus — and has no plans to do so after the Eastside expansion.

Instead, the hospital hopes the extra space will allow it to offer more outpatient specialty services and urgent care for emergencies that are not life-threatening, Hansen said.

Children's is at capacity in Laurelhurst and must look elsewhere to expand, he said.

The Bellevue offices list 13 specialty areas — including neurology, orthopedics and behavioral medicine — and Hansen would like to see that number reach 20. New areas might include plastic surgery, sports medicine, radiology and urology.

If the Bellevue expansion goes well, Hansen said, Children's likely will pursue a similar strategy to the north and south. It already has offices in Everett, Federal Way and Olympia.

Overlake Hospital said it plans to build a second medical office tower in Bellevue, but no start date for construction has been set, said spokeswoman Alison Estep. Otherwise, she said, there's virtually no room at Overlake for Children's to grow.

"We're quite full," Estep said. "We'll continue to work collaboratively with them and we welcome their growth in the community."

Children's is in an expansion mode. It announced last month it is acquiring two large buildings in downtown Seattle for as much as $145 million in hopes of becoming a major player in biomedical research.

The deals are expected to give Children's enough space to expand its research staff from about 200 to 1,500 people in the next decade.

Seattle Times business reporter Luke Timmerman contributed to this story.

Amy Martinez: 206-464-2923 or amartinez@seattletimes.com