DETROIT-The Detroit Medical Center, owned by Nashville, TN-based Vanguard Health Systems as of last week, has awarded design and construction contracts for about $288 million in new buildings and renovations for its downtown campus. Vanguard purchased the formerly non-profit DMC for about $368 million in cash, along with the promise of about $500 million in new construction and $350 million in other upgrades.

Eight projects are included in the new contract award, including a $110 million new Cardiovascular Institute and Multispecialty building and a $43 million new Children’s Hospital of Michigan Pediatric Specialty Center. The other six projects are additions and renovations to existing structures such as adding patient rooms, operating rooms and a $78 million emergency room expansion at Sinai-Grace Hospital.

Harley Ellis Devereaux was awarded the design contract for the Cardiovascular facility, a five-story, 150,000-square-foot building. Construction on the project is expected to begin in the fall.

Brinker LLC was awarded the Children’s construction contract and Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbot was awarded the design contract. The five-story, 105,000-square-foot Children’s center will have a pediatrics clinic, adolescent medicine, outpatient rehabilitation, specialty clinics and 200 physician office suites. The existing DMC Children’s hospital served almost 250,000 patients in 2009.

David Manardo, SVP of facilities and real estate services for the hospital, tells GlobeSt.com that the bulk of the rest of the $500 million is from another $175 million patient tower that will be added to the Children’s center. “We need to get the pediatric center built first,” he says.

The sale was difficult for Vanguard to complete, as this project was the first non-profit health system sold to a for-profit company in Michigan. Vanguard had to promise to implement the almost $1 billion of investment along with the purchase. Manardo says it’s not unusual for a health company these days to be funding such expensive investments.

“In order to keep up with improvements in technology, a health system has to continually invest its resources into infrastructure and modernization of its facilities,” he says. “This is a world-class institution, and Vanguard will spend the next five years expanding the facilities here.”

The DMC has also made a commitment to hire locals and minorities for a significant portion of the project. For example, 50% of all hours worked on construction projects will be by Wayne County residents, the county that includes Detroit.