Norton Children’s to build second children’s hospital in Louisville

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Norton Children’s announced plans to build a new pediatric care campus, complete with Louisville’s second dedicated children’s hospital.

The 150-acre facility will be located near the intersection of I-64 and I-265 in eastern Jefferson County. 

Along with the new children’s hospital, the campus will include research facilities and expanded specialty services that complement other Norton Healthcare facilities.  Average employee salary at the hospital alone is expected to be around $60,000, officials said in a news release Wednesday.

“Our vision is to build a village for pediatric care unlike anything Kentucky or the region has seen. This campus will bring together leading-edge technology; top pediatric specialists; and compassionate, family-centered care — all in one place,” said Russell Cox, president and CEO of Norton Healthcare and Norton Children’s.

The company held a press conference on Wednesday night where they revealed this plan. Multiple representatives were in attendance like Mayor Craig Greenberg, Gov. Andy Beshear, Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman, Kentucky Republican majority leader Robert Stivers, Sen. Julie Raque-Adams and many more. 

Most of them took part in speaking to attendees of the big announcement alongside Cox, and so did the Newcomb family who took the time to speak about Lily Newcomb’s successful open heart surgery at Norton Children’s Hospital in downtown Louisville. 

“While we’re fortunate to have this care close to home, many Kentucky families face the added burden of traveling hours away,” said Lily’s mom, Lauren Cherry Newcomb. “When we faced Lily’s diagnosis with congenital heart defect, a hole in her heart, and they told us that she needed open heart surgery we started to ask a lot of questions. Do we need to go to Cincinnati? Do we need to go to Boston? Do we need to go to Tennessee? And one of the things that we kept hearing was how amazing and world class, and number one, the care were here. Right here in Louisville at Norton Children’s Hospital.”

Cox did acknowledge the competition in children’s care in other nearby cities. 

“The better we can be in the region that doesn’t force people to go so far away and incur all of that expense, the better off we all are,” he said. “We absolutely think that we have the framework to be better than all of those institutions. But the main thing is that pediatric patient deserves that care. In order for them to live their best life, we need to have that care available to them at those in those early years.”

A neurosurgeon who used to work for Boston Children’s Hospital, and currently works for Norton, said this will be a great local investment. 

“It’s about time,” said Dr. Thomas Moriarty. “Expanded operating room space, expanded technology and just more room for the families in the hospital.”

The new campus will be developed in phases, starting with the new dedicated pediatric hospital. Future plans include behavioral and mental health care, expanded clinic space for pediatric specialists, and research facilities to develop new treatments and cures for childhood conditions.

In the next year, Norton plans to hold listening sessions, starting with Louisville in July and then moving to other cities, to ensure the new campus meets the community’s needs.

Beshear said the new facility will be among the biggest, if not the largest, pediatric health campuses in the country.

“Our doctors and scientists are going to take research and innovation to a new level,” the governor said, adding the facility will create 1,000 new jobs, the largest jobs announcement in Kentucky so far this year.

A groundbreaking date for the start of construction has not been announced.

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