BJC HealthCare celebrates grand opening of Plaza West Tower

The 16-story tower updates and modernizes inpatient patient care, with 224 acute care rooms and 56 ICU rooms, as well as 124 expanded surgical prep and recovery rooms. The radiology floor includes 32 medical imaging and interventional radiology rooms, with state-of-the-art MRI, CT and other specialty interventional radiology services.  

Additional amenities and updates in the 660,000-sf tower include two rooftop gardens with views of nearby Forest Park, plus a family lounge and business center, a new cafeteria, quiet rooms and laundry services for patients and family use. 

The sixth and seventh floors are home to the Heart and Vascular ICU, which has larger rooms to accommodate patient loved ones and allow caregivers to work more efficiently. Another seven floors in the tower are dedicated to Heart and Vascular acute care services.  

CannonDesign provided architecture, interior design and planning services for Plaza West Tower, a culmination of strategic planning work and a main pillar of BJC’s Campus Renewal Plan. 

“This new patient tower is a major milestone for BJC HealthCare, Washington University Medical Campus and the city of St. Louis,” said Natalie Petzoldt, Design Team Project Executive on the Plaza West Tower project and Principal and Health Market Leader at CannonDesign. “This is more than just a building; this achieves a vision to provide the community with a new level of care and experience that matches the excellence expected from a top-ranked academic medical center.” 

The exterior of the building is comprised of natural limestone, glass, metal panels and concrete panels, similar to previous Campus Renewal projects on the campus. The tower itself is set on a podium base to relate to the massing of the adjacent buildings and create varying building heights on campus. 

The interior philosophy of the tower is based on the concept “A Journey Through Neighboring Gardens,” with each floor’s artwork, color, material palette and wayfinding cues inspired by a different St. Louis garden.  

Much of the early design work for this project was completed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The building incorporates lessons learned from the global pandemic, including ensuring that all acute care patient rooms in the tower have negative pressure capabilities for infection control and can be converted into ICU rooms. 

Delivery through a progressive design-build partnership, led by McCarthy Building Companies, allowed for a unified team that aligned project goals and each team’s tasks to ensure they were all serving the overarching goals of the patient tower project. The project also had 12 Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) partners participating throughout the Plaza West Tower project. 

Plaza West Tower will be open to patients in October 2025.