Emerson plans $100M+ campus overhaul by 2030
Crews will demolish Emerson’s “White House” and its Community Agencies Building for a new emergency department.
Emerson Health President and CEO Christine Schuster remembers awaiting migraine treatment at the hospital she runs as another patient screamed on the other side of a curtain.
She said sharing a room is already hard “when you can’t think.” Migraines can make loud noises excruciating, and Schuster said her neighbor was “clearly having a mental health crisis.”
A planned $100 million-plus campus overhaul with a new emergency department could make experiences like Schuster’s a thing of the past — and offer better treatment for people in crisis with a set of separate behavioral health emergency beds.
The project will take years to complete, but crews will start work soon, and executives recently went public with a major fundraising campaign.
“It’s going to help us to create a better environment for whatever you come in for,” Schuster said.
Cramped quarters
Emerson’s current emergency department dates to the 1960s. Patient beds often line the hallways.
Emerson advertises its emergency department as a 22-bed facility. However, Associate Chief Nursing Officer Amanda Maillet said the patient count sometimes spikes as high as 30 at a given time. The department has only two bathrooms.
This past winter, staff sometimes placed seats in an adjacent hallway as patients overflowed from the waiting room. Also this winter, doctors co-opted a radiology waiting room when they ran out of standard beds.
Vice President of Development and Chief Philanthropy Officer Karl Kussin said the emergency department lacks sufficient parking near the entrance. Ambulances must dodge pedestrians and other vehicles to reach a bay in full view of the department’s main entrance.
Doing the math on Emerson’s ED goals
9,000 square feet: Old emergency department footprint
18,000 square feet: New emergency department footprint
22 beds: Old emergency department
23 single rooms + 10 psychiatric rooms: New emergency department
The new 18,000-square-foot emergency department would double the facility’s space. It would have 23 single rooms (instead of rooms with two beds divided by a curtain) and 10 additional designated psychiatric rooms.
Executives aim to boost ambulance access and patient parking with the new facility.
Outside the emergency department, campus plans promise more single inpatient rooms and bigger cancer care facilities. Some departments might relocate within the campus.
Crews will demolish Emerson’s historic “White House” this fall and later raze its Community Agencies Building to make way for the addition. Executives want to open the new emergency department in 2030. Kussin said Emerson will repurpose its old emergency room and said urology services could be a possible reuse.
Emerson will contribute about $40 million from its regular operations budget. Hospital leaders hope donors will give the remaining $60 million. Emerson had raised roughly $33 million through June.
Mental health needs
Emerson’s emergency patient volume has spiked since the Covid pandemic. The uptick accelerated last summer when Steward Health Care collapsed and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer closed.
Other hospitals have similar emergency department problems, Schuster said. Among other issues, there aren’t enough inpatient psychiatric beds for children and seniors, forcing some patients to wait in emergency departments for days.
Lawrence General Hospital opened an accelerated care unit last year to accommodate a surge in emergency patients. Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Milton added six emergency room beds last fall and broke ground on a much larger ER expansion this year.
At Emerson, Schuster said the behavioral health area will give people privacy.
“They also deserve to have their mental breakdown out of the sight of others,” she said.
Upgrade budget
$100+ million: Total cost
$60 million: Minimum fundraising
$40 million: Hospital budget
Project challenges
Kussin said Emerson’s plans could change. “But the basic concept is solid,” he said.
He hopes the result will help Emerson’s image, acknowledging how the White House’s peeling paint and the main office building’s concrete facade give passersby a negative impression.
Emerson would need town approval before breaking ground on its expansion. The fundraising push is also a “big jump,” since Kussin said Emerson has never raised more than $12 million in a single campaign.
Executives quietly started gathering funding in 2022 and have collected everything from $5 million donations to $100 contributions, according to Schuster.
While tariffs and recent economic instability have snarled some building projects, Schuster said, officials aren’t panicking yet, as they have several years before crews start pouring concrete.
Schuster said she’s ready for any surprises that might surface when the more than 100-year-old White House or the Community Agencies Building meet the wrecking ball. She said crews will do abatement work if they find asbestos.
Parking plans
Concept illustrations in Emerson’s fundraising materials show a new parking garage next to Route 2. Kussin said the garage would add 200-300 spaces. It’s not part of the initial $100 million plan, though, and would cost an extra $15 million.
Despite adding emergency department space, the project’s first phase wouldn’t increase on-site parking. Schuster said Emerson will prioritize putting patient spaces near the new department and will move more staff parking to an existing lot across Route 2.
Emerson runs shuttles to get workers to and from their cars; Schuster said the system works. “We think we’ll be absolutely fine.”
Executives will consider building the new garage after opening the expanded emergency department.
‘Everything will be better’
Acton resident Laura McKenna recalls when her sister got care at Emerson after a serious injury. Her husband had his appendix out at the hospital, and she birthed her son there. “I can’t say a bad word about Emerson,” she said.
Lisa Resnick said she started getting care at Emerson during the pandemic. She’s not surprised by the hospital’s spike in patients after the Nashoba Valley Medical Center closure.
While extra beds here might help with capacity, and while it’s a short trip for Resnick and her Acton neighbors, she said she feels for EMTs bringing patients from communities that once had Nashoba Valley.
“It’s too far,” she said.
Kussin said, “People are stepping up hard in a way that they never had for us.”
As she watched a nurse retrieve linens from a supply closet — one of many scattered around the existing emergency department — Emerson Public Relations Manager Leah Lesser looked to the future.
“Everything will be better with the new building,” she said.
See more information about Emerson’s fundraising campaign at emersonhealth.org/support/ways-to-give/transforming-health/.
