By Catharine Richert, Minnesota Public Radio News

 

Mayo Clinic will add 11 floors to its iconic, 21-floor Gonda Building, including a major expansion of clinical space and a hotel.

“This is really helping us meet patient demands and needs,” said Jeff Bolton, Mayo’s chief administrative officer.

Four of the floors will be dedicated to new clinical space at the cost of $190 million to Mayo. Specific plans for that space are still being decided, but Mayo intends to use the extra space to expand its cancer center and its outpatient procedure center.

Mayo is growing rapidly under the Destination Medical Center economic development project, which aims to attract more patients nationally and internationally. Bolton added that the second half of the addition — a seven-story hotel — will help meet that goal.

The hotel will be developed by Singapore-based Pontiac Land Group, which specializes in luxury properties.

Teaming up with Pontiac Land Group allows Mayo to accelerate plans to add new space because Mayo will only be financing part of the expansion, according to Dr. Michel Harper, executive dean of practice for Mayo.

“This is a very unique collaboration to expand our clinical space much sooner than we would have been able to otherwise,” Harper said. “And we still meet the original design intentions of the Gonda Building.”

The project is slated to start in late 2019 or early 2020, and be finished by the end of 2022.