UK HealthCare will build a $580M utilities plant as part of an expansion

University of Kentucky hospital is going to build a $580 million utilities plant to help serve more patients, according to a news release from the university.

UK’s Albert B. Chandler Hospital will expand its infrastructure through a public-private partnership with Kentucky Infrastructure Partners, which includes designers, developers and utility operators, the release said. The utility plant is an early step in UK’s planned expansion of the hospital.

“This is the first project that has to be done in order to expand Chandler, because our current heating and cooling is not enough to support an expansion,” said Lindsay Travis, a spokesperson for UK HealthCare.

The facility will provide utility services to the hospital with a “connected distribution system and optimize existing equipment to provide heating and cooling to a growing campus,” the university said.

“Thousands of patients each year must be turned away because current facilities are at capacity,” the news release said.

The project is expected to modernize UK’s existing water systems to be energy efficient. It will also provide backup generators to the hospital and more “utility piping” to support other areas of the south campus, Travis said.

Photo renderings of the utility plant depict a short gray rectangular building with smoke stacks. The renderings were provided by KFI, a commercial contracting company, and Walsh Turner, which deals with healthcare construction, according to their websites.

Walsh Turner’s website said the project will provide “electrical substation and transmission upgrades, expansion and improvement of surrounding roadway networks, a new 2400+ car parking garage, abatement and demolition of existing structures, and a comprehensive site upgrade for the UKHC medical campus.”

Travis collaborated most of that statement. She said the parking relates to the ongoing expansion of Sports Center Garage. Also, the “electrical substation and transmission upgrades” are separate from the public-private partnership, but other details were not immediately available, according to Travis.

The plant will sit near Hospital and University drives, but an exact address was not immediately clear, according to Travis.

Development will impact parking, traffic

The large-scale structure will impact parking and traffic nearby.

Traffic changes will start as early as mid-June along University Drive, between Cooper and Complex drives.

Parking changes will impact the University Drive Garage, or PS #1, near Cooper and University drives.

The public-private partnership was recently approved by the Kentucky General Assembly’s Capital Projects and Bond Oversight Committee, which oversees state-funded capitol construction projects and other finances related to development.

UK President Eli Capilouto said the healthcare system must grow in order to serve people statewide.

“The expansion of Chandler Hospital is essential to meeting the healthcare needs of our state,” Capilouto said in the release. “This project ensures we have the infrastructure in place to make that growth possible and to keep advancing Kentucky.”

UK began designing the Chandler expansion in late 2024. UK had to deny 4,000 patient transfer requests from other hospitals in 2023, which officials said was too many, the Herald-Leader previously reported.

The Herald-Leader requested but has not yet received public records related to the utilities plant under the Kentucky Open Records Act.

This story was originally published May 21, 2026 at 2:49 PM.