University of South Alabama leaders gathered with hospital staff and families in Mobile to mark the formal close of a $72.6 million expansion at USA Children’s & Women’s Hospital, capping nearly four years of construction with a ribbon-cutting and open house.
The event, held on a Thursday in late August, brought together administrators, donors and community members to celebrate the finished courtyard and lobby, the last visible piece of a project that broke ground on Nov. 17, 2010.
USA President Tony Waldrop and hospital administrator Owen Bailey addressed the crowd during the opening ceremony, reflecting on the years of planning and fundraising that went into transforming the campus. During the program, Bailey presented a sculpture to Dr. Becky DeVillier, the hospital’s former administrator, in recognition of her years of service leading the facility.
The first phase of the broader expansion, funded jointly by the USA Health System and the USA Foundation, added critical space for the hospital’s neonatal and pediatric intensive care units along with new operating rooms. That 195,000-square-foot wing very nearly doubled the hospital’s overall footprint and was dedicated back in September 2013.
The second phase, celebrated at Thursday’s gala, focused on the patient and visitor experience rather than clinical space. Crews renovated and enlarged the hospital’s main lobby and gift shop and built a covered courtyard connector joining the newer wing to the original building, creating a more welcoming entrance for families arriving at the hospital.
The open house that followed the ribbon-cutting had a distinctly family-friendly feel, with USA’s Jaguar mascots and cheerleading squad mingling with guests. The newly finished gift shop, tucked into the renovated lobby, now stocks a wide selection of Jaguar and university-branded merchandise alongside its usual offerings.
Celebrations carried into the next day, when a traveling juggling troupe called “Playing By Air” performed in the new courtyard for pediatric patients still receiving care inside the hospital, giving young patients a bit of entertainment tied directly to the milestone.
For Mobile-area families, the finished project represents more than new landscaping and retail space. It closes out a construction effort that expanded critical care capacity, added operating rooms, and reshaped how patients and visitors experience one of the region’s primary hospitals for children and expectant mothers.