Nemours Children’s Health invests $430M in projects in Florida and Delaware

Nemours Children’s Health is planning to invest a total of $430 million to expand its campuses in central Florida and Delaware.

Nemours Children's Health is planning expansion projects at its Florida and Delaware campuses. Above, an artist rendering of the project in Orlando.

This week, the pediatric health system unveiled plans for several ambitious projects at both campuses.

The system plans to build three new buildings at Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando, and the project calls for a significant expansion of the emergency department. Nemours is investing $300 million in the Florida project.

At Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware, the system is building a new maternal and fetal health program, along with an expanded neonatal intensive care unit. Nemours will spend $130 million on the expansion of the Wilmington campus.

R. Lawrence “Larry” Moss, MD, president and chief executive officer of Nemours Children’s Health, says the projects reflect a larger vision. In an interview with Chief Healthcare Executive® Wednesday, Moss says both projects are in “a larger context of a broader commitment to child health.”

“Nemours’ core business is providing high-end specialty care, the kids with really serious problems,” Moss says. “And we will always be in that business. But I want people to understand these investments in the larger context of what we like to call the ‘whole child health’ model, and Nemours’ commitment to the overall health of every child, whether they're the rare few that need our services, or every other child.”

Each project carries a number of elements and would represent a substantial undertaking. Nemours is kicking off projects on both campuses at the same time, with the work taking place over the next few years.

Moss acknowledges launching both the Florida and Delaware projects simultaneously requires a great deal of work, but he says Nemours has planned for the work at both campuses.

“You know, we didn't just fall out of bed last week and decide to do these projects,” Moss says. “We've actually been planning for them for years, and we made a number of financial moves in the organization to grow our unrestricted reserves, and essentially, to use a colloquial term, ‘save up’ to be able to do this, because we knew it was coming.”

“Nemours is a nonprofit institution, so every dollar we generate goes back into children and goes back into our programs, and this is a really good example of that,” he says.

Nemours has also enjoyed success with its fundraising efforts in recent years, which is aiding in the projects.

“Philanthropy and growing our development efforts have been a huge focus of mine,” Moss says. “We've seen our philanthropic totals for the year increase close to tenfold from what they were just a few years ago. And that's been a deliberate effort, because it allows us to do the things we're talking about today.”

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Florida campus

Moss says the plans to expand the Orlando campus reflect the increased volume the hospital is seeing and the projections for continued growth.

In central Florida, the pediatric population, already 1 million, is expected to grow by nearly 5% over the next five years, the system says.

“Central Florida is one of the most rapidly growing areas in the country, and specifically, the child population is growing very rapidly. So yes, we are meeting a need, and we are anticipating the future,” Moss said. “We are still, in Orlando, a relatively small hospital, when you think of children's hospitals on a national scale. That's changing quickly.”

Nemours is planning a 110,000-square-foot expansion of the hospital, which will double the size of the emergency department.

The project will also add new inpatient beds and observation rooms and expand the imaging department. The system projects the expansion will be complete in 2028.

“We're adding inpatient beds because we're full and we're growing our congenital heart program, we're growing our orthopedics program, we're growing our cancer program, we're growing our neurosciences program,” Moss says. “So all of those programs are going to need space and resources to operate.”

The system is also planning to build a 75,000-square-foot facility, which will house a bigger surgery center with six new operating rooms and new patient exam rooms.

This new building will also house Nemours’ orthopedic division, which Moss said is growing quickly. It’ll include a new International Center for Limb Lengthening and a new Gait and Motion Analysis Lab. The laboratory will offer more services to patients with cerebral palsy.

The new facility will also expand the sports medicine program and outpatient rehabilitation services. The facility is also slated to open in 2028.

Nemours is also building a new administrative building, and a new 800-space parking garage. Both of those projects are expected to be finished in 2027.

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Delaware campus

Nemours is also planning to build a new maternal and fetal health program in Wilmington. Moss says the goal is to improve care for mothers and babies with complex health needs.

“That is about healthy Moms carrying babies that are very sick or have very severe problems, and the subset of kids that we will deliver in the children's hospital are kids that we know in advance will need immediate intervention, usually surgery, right at the time of or immediately after birth,” Moss said.

Moss says the new facility will help prevent situations where mothers are delivering babies at another facility and then the child has to be transferred to Nemours.

“Not only is that cumbersome and logistically challenging, it significantly increases the risk to those babies,” Moss says. “So being able to deliver them onsite allows us to do two things: first of all, immediately and optimally care for the baby, and then also critically important, is keep the mom and the baby together in the same facility.”

The project includes four new labor and delivery birthing suites, eight new antepartum and postpartum rooms. In addition, the plans call for three operating rooms that can be utilized for both fetal and maternal care.

Nemours is adding 14 inpatient rooms to the neonatal intensive care unit in 2025, boosting the NICU’s capacity to 45 beds.

Nemours is also opening the Lisa Dean Moseley Foundation Institute for Cancer and Blood Disorders in early 2025. The 24,000-square-foot facility will feature 24 inpatient beds. The plans also include expanding the outpatient Day Hospital and Infusion Center, and Nemours is expanding cardiology programs at the campus.

The system is also working to renovate the original Alfred I. duPont Institute on the Wilmington campus, with aims of modernizing the building while preserving the building’s architectural features. The work includes an expanded simulation center to help train clinicians. The project is slated to be completed in mid-2026.

Moss looks forward to the added capabilities coming at both campuses, but he also stresses that they are only part of the system’s mission.

“Nemours is in the business of creating health, not just treating disease,” he says. “And when people think of Nemours Children's Health, I want them to think of an organization that is committed to every child in our service area everywhere, not just the ones who are sick and need to come to the hospital.”