Outpatient Building
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The Outpatient Clinic of the University was built at a cost of $3,836,717 with funds appropriated by the state. Skidmore, Owings and Merrill were appointed as architectural consultants for the building and the firm of Giffels and Vallet, Inc., as architects. A contract for the construction of the superstructure was executed with JeffressDyer, Inc., of Washington, D.C.
Construction was begun in September, 1950, and completed in January, 1953. The structure was a seven-story addition to the main building. It housed twenty-one clinics formerly scattered throughout odd corners of the University Hospital, and was now capable of serving three times the 250,000 annual patient capacity of the old Clinic.
The new clinics were designed to provide faster and better service as well as comfort and convenience for patients not confined to hospital beds. In addition to the twenty-one specialty clinics there were 196 examining rooms, six classrooms, and ample space for the administrative staff. On each level were comfortable waiting rooms. The Pediatrics and the Psychiatry clinics had their own waiting rooms.
With the opening of the building the Hospital began a twenty-four-hour-a-day emergency service. The air-conditioned emergency suite consisted of a receiving room, four minor operating rooms, a first aid room, and a cast room, with X-ray facilities adjacent.
General services for all patients were on the second level, which was the ground floor at the main entrance. Here stood the reception desk where patients presented letters of referral from their doctors. Nearby was the registration area, with individual booths for interviewing patients. Next was a general laboratory area for routine examinations. Also on this floor was the pharmacy unit where patients could have prescriptions filled, and the Central Appointments Office.
Like all units of the Medical Center, this building was used in the education of medical and nursing students. The classrooms were equipped for film and X-ray projection. Another important teaching facility was the Nutrition Clinic, where patients were taught the dietary principles necessary in treatment of certain diseases. The Heredity Clinic, formerly in a frame building behind the main Hospital was moved to the Outpatient Building and had quarters on the first level.
The Outpatient Clinic Building measured 125,340 square feet. It was 60 by 231 feet. It was built of reinforced concrete and light brick and was modern in style. In addition to the basement, there were approximately 500 rooms on the seven floors. A bridge 140 feet long connected the Clinic Building with the Main Hospital on three levels.
Ruth Gjelsness (The University of Michigan: An Encyclopedic Survey, p. 1659)
Outpatient Building Addition - 1973
Following completion of the construction of the C. S. Mott Children's Hospital, planning was begun on two projects which would occupy an unfinished area of the first level. To be financed by gifts, Medical Center/School and Hospital funds, the James L. Wilson Pediatric Laboratories and the Mott Cardiac Care Study Unit projects were combined to realize architectural and construction cost savings. Prior to construction, these Albert Kahn and Associates Architects and Engineers, Inc. projects were incorporated into the Outpatient Addition project to effect further savings on these $500,000 projects. Also designed by the Albert Kahn firm, the Outpatient Addition spaned the corridor areas between the Outpatient Building and C. S. Mott Children's Hospital. Jeffress-Dyer, Inc. was the general contractor and completed the structure in 1973. The five-story addition connected the two units by ramp and stairway, facilitating movement of patients between the buildings, and provided much needed expansion room for 10 clinics. The fourth level expansion was particularly significant since it allowed consolidation on one level of Emergency Services, the Adult General Medicine Walk-In Clinic and the Pediatric Walk-In Clinic. The 17,523-square-foot, $817,517 structure also enabled extensive remodeling to enlarge the capacity of the Emergency Suite, and was financed by a federal grant of Hill-Burton funds and University Hospital funds.
(The University of Michigan: An Encyclopedic Survey, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer>Physical Properties>Buildings, p. 85) Outpatient Building Addition - 1973)