Akron Children’s Hospital in Rocky River Starts Site Prep

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Site preparation plus interior and exterior demolition got underway last week for Akron Children’s Hospital’s $30 million renovation and repurposing of the 46-year-old Plaza West office building at 20220 Center Ridge Rd. in suburban Rocky River into an outpatient pediatrics care center.

Opening in the fall of 2027, the facility will be Akron Children’s Hospital’s first west-suburban Cleveland location, offering a wide variety of pediatric care from pre-natal to teen, as well as a full-service emergency room.

It joins in Greater Cleveland two east-suburban facilities for Akron Children’s Hospital in Mayfield Heights and Beachwood. But at both of those sites, Akron Children’s Hospital is but a tenant. Hospital officials touted their new Rocky River location as “the only freestanding independent pediatric facility in the region.”

In December 2025, Akron Children’s Hospital paid $2.85 million for 13 parcels totaling 3.37 acres including the 68,000-square-foot Plaza West office building and its parking garage.

The health system also acquired three properties with three separate, small commercial structures to the west. Those most recently hosted CLE Physical Therapy, MG Sports Massage + Recovery Lounge and A Gallery West.

The latter two commercial structures are attached to each other. All of those structures east of the Autozone store were vacated and construction fencing now surrounds them.

However, plans approved by the city in the spring for the Akron Children’s Hospital show that the two attached commercial buildings immediately east of Autozone would remain even though no uses were identified for them by the plans or hospital representatives. The CLE Physical Therapy structure will be demolished.

Project architect Scott Radcliff of Akron-based Hasenstab Architects told Rocky River’s Planning Commission in May that the work on the Plaza West office building will be a “full gut and renovation.” A wall on the east side of the building has already been opened up so the interiors can be removed.

“Primary care will be on the lower, first floor,” Radcliff said of the building on the sloping site. “The second floor, which is basically at grade level (facing Center Ridge), will have a free-standing emergency department with radiology adjacent to it with lab and outpatient pharmacy services on that same floor.”

On the third floor, he said there will be outpatient behavioral health and rehabilitation services. And on the fourth or top floor, there will be all of the specialty services, including heart, orthopedics, and a variety of other services.

“The vision of Akron Children’s is to be the most trusted, inclusive, and accessible pediatric health system in the communities they serve,” Brian Lapolla, vice president of operations and facilities at the health system, told the planning commission.

“Facilities like these allow us to provide the right care at the right place at the right time, and as close to home as possible for patients and families,” Lapolla added.

Not only will the existing 213-space parking garage be renovated, but more parking will be added to the site to bring the total to 299 spaces. The reason for the additional parking is because Rocky River’s building code requires three parking spaces per 1,000 square feet of office space. For medical uses, four spaces are required per 1,000 square feet.

Planning documents submitted by the development team show that the new outpatient hospital will generate about 75 trips per hour of traffic volume. That includes about 135 ambulance visits per year or just over two per week.

Lapolla said that as use of the facility grows, that number could grow over time, but he said it would never exceed six or seven visits per week. And all of the ambulances will serve the emergency entrance that fronts Center Ridge, not the back entrance facing the residential area along Orchard Grove Avenue.

He also said there will be no beds that allow for inpatient care. There will be some observation rooms in the emergency department to stabilize patients. But, if they needed inpatient care, they will be transferred to a full-service hospital, Lapolla said.

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