The U-M Health System plans to break ground for the 1.1-million-square-foot C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Women’s Hospital facility 11:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Oct. 6. The celebration will be held in the courtyard between University Hospital and the current Mott facility

A formal ceremony will begin at 4 p.m. on the terrace parking lot, site of the new building on the Medical Campus. All events are open to the public.

“The groundbreaking truly is a celebration of the amazing work our faculty and staff do here each day, and the future of children’s and women’s services at the University of Michigan Health System,” says Patricia Warner, associate hospital director and chief administrative officer, C.S. Mott Children’s and Women’s Hospitals. “We are very proud of this building project, and excited that it will allow us to continue to provide the best in specialized children’s and women’s care for generations to come.”

The event will feature kite performances by Aerial Experience Productions and the Windjammers Stunt Kite Team from southeastern Michigan, who have performed at major national events. Children of all ages can participate in a special art project in the courtyard, funded by a $6,000 gift from student swimmer Amanda Johnson and her siblings.

Those who attend the courtyard event also will get the first glimpse inside the new facility. A computer-animated design, created at no cost to UMHS by Ann Arbor-based CAD Corp., will showcase special features of the building interior design, including the Family Resource Center—complete with a library, chapel, computer access and space to meet in private with health care providers—state-of-the-art surgical suites and private patient rooms with wireless computer access.

At the 4 p.m. groundbreaking ceremony, Regent David Brandon—who recently gave a $2 million gift to support the Newborn Intensive Care Unit in the new children’s hospital—and Laurie Carr, wife of Head Football Coach Lloyd Carr, officially will break ground for the new facility. Brandon and his wife, Jan, along with the Carrs, co-chair the children’s and women’s fund-raising campaign.

Other special guests will include President Mary Sue Coleman, Regent Chair Olivia Maynard, UMHS Chief Executive Officer Dr. Robert Kelch, Mott Foundation President and Chief Executive Officer William White and Ypsilanti resident Angelique McClelland, whose son underwent successful fetal surgery at Mott in May.

The $523 million C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Women’s Hospital facility is designed to fit today’s medicine and tomorrow’s innovations.

With 1.1 million square feet, the facility will provide a new and larger home for specialty services not offered anywhere else in Michigan for newborns, children and pregnant women, such as the pediatric liver transplant program, the Level I Pediatric Trauma Program, the Pediatric and Adolescent Home Ventilator Program, the Craniofacial Anomalies Program, high-risk pregnancy services and specialty gynecological services.

UMHS has raised nearly $50 million of its $75 million goal for the project, including a $25 million grant from the Flint-based C.S. Mott Foundation; a $7 million gift from Ernest and Kelly Sorini that will create the Sorini Family Children’s Emergency Medicine Center, dedicated to pediatric care and hazardous materials-capable; a $4 million grant from the Detroit-based Carls Foundation; the $2 million gift from the Brandons, which will support the Nick and Chris Brandon Newborn Intensive Care Unit, named in recognition of the life-saving care in 1980 that their twin sons received at Mott; and a $2 million gift from Jane Von Voigtlander.

Located on the terrace site of the medical campus, the facility will consist of a nine-story clinic tower and a 12-story inpatient tower that will bridge inpatient and outpatient services within the same medical disciplines to create a programmatic approach to patient care on each floor.

To learn more about the project, go to www.mottchildrenshospital.org.