P/SL To Add Children's Hospital.

Presbyterian-Saint Luke's Hospital, commonly known as P/SL is the hospital where both of my children were born. It is adjacent to Children's Hospital, which is moving to the Fitzsimons Complex in Aurora, and St. Joseph's Hospital, a Catholic hospital. P/SL itself is the product of a merger of Saint Luke's hospital, which was located where the Post Properties development in Uptown is now, and Presbyterian Hospital.

Critics of Wellington Webb's tenure as Mayor of Denver criticize his loss of two major hospitals to Fitzsimons, University Hospital on Colorado Boulevard, and Children's in the Uptown neighborhood, as one of his biggest failures.

But now, P/SL is expanding to have its own Children's Hospital. Two other metro area facilities will also be expanded.

$84 million to upgrade four floors and construct two new units at Swedish Medical Center to complement the 2003 expansion of surgical services; convert to private patient rooms and other amenities; remodel and expand the neonatal intensive care unit; redesign the Emergency Department/Level I Trauma Center; and renovate the south parking garage.

$60 million to add a new 140,000- square-foot tower to the Medical Center of Aurora to house private rooms, an expanded intensive care unit and dedicated space for an enhanced Cardiovascular Center of Excellence; convert nearly all other patient areas to private rooms; build a new parking lot and create a new front entrance to the hospital with a pedestrian plaza.

$111 million at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center to create a dedicated HealthOne Children's Hospital at P/SL, renovate adult service areas in the existing hospital to expand high-demand services such as cancer care and the bone marrow transplant unit and build a 120,000-square-foot medical office building.

• The HealthOne Children's Hospital at P/SL will entail renovating existing areas and adding 100,000 square feet for a 54-bed pediatric center, pediatric intensive care unit, pediatric operating rooms, pediatric emergency department and pediatric diagnostic imaging area.

This step will, at least, mitigate the harm done to Denver by the loss of the hospitals. The University Hospital area will be converted to a mixed use development.