Heartspring has unveiled plans for an expansion in downtown Wichita.
The new center will integrate specialized clinical care, training and applied research for children with autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions under one roof.
It will be located in the city’s new downtown healthcare corridor, across the street from the Wichita Biomedical Campus, near English and Topeka.
Heartspring’s current building in east Wichita will remain open, and leaders plan to expand the residential school.
Dan Soliday, president and CEO of Heartspring, said they’re planning to open the downtown building in 2030. It is projected to cost of about $25 million.
But Soliday said this is more than a shiny new building.
“In fact, this whole project is not just about a state-of-the-art facility downtown,” he said. “It's about building a system that works well for families, instead of them trying to piecemeal everything together as they try and figure out how to best help their child.”
Soliday said the expansion downtown was motivated by Heartspring’s work with the University of Kansas Medical School and Wichita State University. It made sense to be across the street from the universities’ biomed campuses, expanding their applied learning partnerships.
The building will be the new home of Heartspring’s Center for Pediatric Neurodevelopment. This will be the first stand-alone outpatient center of its kind in Kansas.
Soliday said the expansion comes at a time when Heartspring faces greater demand for its services.
“Autism alone in Kansas has grown by over 300%,” Soliday said. “We know that if we diagnose those issues early, we can get them into really good treatment and help them be able to be successful and independent.”
Heartspring’s outpatient clinic currently serves more than 400 children annually from Wichita and the surrounding communities. In its therapeutic school, Heartspring has kids from 19 different states.
Heartspring started out as the Institute of Logopedics in 1934 and was always cutting-edge, Soliday said.
“This is that next iteration of cutting-edge,” he said. “We are working to become globally recognized as a center of excellence with our center of pediatric neurodevelopment, so that we continue to do cutting-edge work for not only our kids in Kansas, but for kids throughout the United States and beyond.”