The campus will include three connected, 16-story towers for inpatient, cancer and emergency care, as well as IU Health institutes focused on cancer, cardiovascular care, neuroscience and clinical innovation. Some floors are being furnished and equipped, while other parts of the complex remain in earlier stages of construction.

IU Health says the project is designed to bring patient care, research, medical education and innovation together. Michele Saysana, president of IU Health’s Metro Region and its Methodist and University hospitals, described the design as intended to make care intuitive for patients and staff.

On a nearly completed inpatient floor, that approach is reflected in details such as the placement of equipment and supplies. Nurses and other providers spent almost a year planning room layouts, using a cardboard mockup to test how patients, families and staff would move through the space. The rooms can also be adapted as care needs change, said Amanda Noth-Matchett, chief nursing officer for Methodist and University hospitals.

The new hospital will have 860 inpatient beds, all in private rooms, along with 50 operating rooms and 110 emergency department care spaces. IU Health’s online records list 1,440 beds across Methodist and University hospitals, but Saysana said that figure does not reflect current use: The two sites now have about 770 inpatient beds in operation. She said the new facility will increase the system’s functional capacity.

When the campus opens, IU Health plans to consolidate services from University Hospital, which has been on the IU Indianapolis campus for more than 50 years, and Methodist Hospital, which is more than a century old. The consolidation is intended to reduce the need for clinicians to travel between sites and make care more coordinated, said Liz Linden, IU Health’s chief financial officer.

The move will also leave questions about the future of both existing properties. The University Hospital site is to be returned to Indiana University after services shift. IU Health has not settled on a plan for the Methodist site.

The project is part of the Indy Health District, a 1,500-acre area on Indianapolis’ near northside established in 2024 to address longstanding health and quality-of-life inequities, including limited food access and a lack of green space and safe bike routes.

District Executive Director Jamal Smith said the organization is working with IU Health to ensure investment supports existing residents and does not contribute to displacement. The district and health system have already partnered on a farmers market, where IU Health has offered free health screenings and the district has provided food vouchers. A community quality-of-life assessment is scheduled to be released Nov. 11, with a public presentation at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum from 6 to 8 p.m.

IU Health has also prepared the foundation on an adjacent plot so the hospital could expand if needed, said James Mladucky, the system’s vice president of design and construction. The project’s scale and its consolidation of two longstanding hospitals will reshape a major part of Indianapolis’ medical landscape; how the surrounding neighborhood shares in that investment remains a key community concern.