INDIANAPOLIS-Wishard Memorial executives, along with local government officials, celebrated Wednesday the groundbreaking for a new $745 million hospital. The 1.2-million-square-foot New Wishard complex, to be finished by 2014, will include a 315-bed inpatient hospital, a 200-bed outpatient clinic, a 2,400-car parking garage, a 90-bed emergency treatment center and a women’s health clinic, as well as offices for faculty, research and administration functions.

The current hospital complex, just north of the Indiana University School of Medicine, has buildings that are nearly 100 years old. “Our facilities are getting pretty old, some structures are not up to modern code standards,” says a company spokesman. The university will take over the current complex when the new facility is finished, he tells GlobeSt.com.

The two entities have a strong partnership; roughly half of Indiana’s doctors receive training at the IU School of Medicine and Wishard, while 99% of Wishard physicians are members of the IU medical school faculty. “In the New Wishard, we have an assurance that this great resource will be available for years to come,” said the medical school dean, D. Craig Brater.

Marion County voters approved construction of the new hospital at an election on Nov. 3, 2009. About 85% of the voters supported the measure. The new 37-acre hospital complex will be built just west of the current hospital, south of 10th Street and east of the VA medical center, on the site where two former medical buildings are being torn down. Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. is the lead construction manager for the Wishard project.