Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU announces expansion of NICU into Children’s Tower
Additional beds will allow more infants access to the hospital’s Level 4 neonatal care unit.
May 06, 2025
This is a rendering of one of the new rooms in the neonatal intensive care unit at the Children’s Tower. The expanded NICU plans to welcome its first patient in January 2026. (HKS Architects)
By Kate Marino
Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU marked the second birthday of its Children’s Tower last week, but the biggest 2-year-old on the block has more milestones ahead. Today, the hospital is announcing plans for growth to care for more of its tiniest patients.
“When we opened the Children’s Tower in 2023, we did so with an eye toward the future,” said Elias Neujahr, CHoR president. “The tower was built with shell space so we can appropriately grow along with our community’s needs. We are already noticing and working to meet the first of those needs with construction to accommodate an additional 20 neonatal intensive care beds.”
The newly expanded neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) will be located on the fourth level of the 16-story Children’s Tower and will welcome its first patient in January 2026. The 20 beds will complement CHoR’s 40-bed NICU located in the VCU Medical Center Critical Care Hospital, adjacent to the labor and delivery service on the same campus, so parents can be near their high-risk infants immediately following delivery.
The NICU in the Children’s Tower will consist of 16 single rooms and two twin rooms to accommodate up to 20 patients. Each room will have sleeping space and a private bathroom for parents or guardians. The unit will also include a family lounge and quiet room for family members to work or make phone calls.
Serving NICU patients from across the region
CHoR is a Level 4 NICU, offering the highest level of care available for premature and full-term infants with critical medical needs. In addition to caring for infants born at VCU Health, the CHoR NICU serves as a regional referral center.
“Our neonatal transport team regularly provides ground and air transport for premature, sick and medically complex newborns from other institutions in the commonwealth who require this highly specialized care,” said Karen Hendricks-Muñoz, M.D., chief of the Division of Neonatal Medicine, interim physician-in-chief of CHoR and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Medicine. “Our current NICU is continually at capacity, signifying that more space is required to serve babies in need of critical, innovative surgical and medical treatment that isn’t available at other hospitals.”
About the growing Children’s Tower
The Children’s Tower opened April 30, 2023, bringing pediatric inpatient, emergency, surgical and trauma care into a comprehensive, kid-friendly building adjoining the outpatient Children’s Pavilion in downtown Richmond. The facility allowed CHoR to care for more kids than ever in its first year, followed by double-digit growth in nearly all services in year two. NICU beds were not included at the time of opening. Additional shell space allows for future expansion of other service lines.
Support from the start
Construction of the Children’s Tower was supported by the community through Children’s Hospital Foundation’s ongoing $100 million “Built for Kids, Built by You” capital campaign. The campaign will support the construction of the new NICU, as well as future expansions in the tower.
“It is so rewarding to see the Children’s Tower continue to grow to serve our community,” said Lauren Moore, president and CEO of Children’s Hospital Foundation. “When the tower opened in 2023, we knew it was not only the realization of a decades-long dream but also the beginning of a new chapter of growth for CHoR. We are thrilled that our donors and partners continue to believe in our work and support our mission of providing the best possible care to children and families.”
