Best Real Estate Deals: Georgetown debuts $750M Verstandig Pavilion

Washington, D.C., April 24, 2024 – As MedStar Health drew the curtain on 2023, it also had a big unveiling.

The Columbia, Maryland-based health system opened a new medical building on its Georgetown campus in December, bookending a nearly decade-long undertaking in a $750 million bid to expand its hospital’s capacity for care.

The Verstandig Pavilion stands east of the main MedStar Georgetown University Hospital structure at 3800 Reservoir Road NW. The hospital, which MedStar acquired in 2000, has chronically struggled with space restrictions on that property, hindering its ability to make necessary upgrades even when this project was first conceived.

The solution: build this new pavilion on a former parking lot, and overhaul parking by digging down — with three levels now underground.

MedStar first floated the concept for this project in 2014, but knew “many, many years before that” something like it would be needed, Dr. Lisa Boyle, president of MedStar Georgetown, told us previously.

With an original target delivery in 2020, the building made its debut only after years of planning and delays, including through the pandemic. But construction stalled years before that, as the project secured approvals for special exceptions from zoning regulators. Its expected delivery was pushed more than once throughout the process.

So the six-story, 477,213-square-foot building’s opening couldn’t come soon enough. Today, it houses a larger ER, and more inpatient units and surgery space. It has 156 private patient rooms, 31 operating rooms and 32 ER exam rooms. A helipad sits on the roof.

The price tag also increased, from the $400 million MedStar proposed in a letter of intent submitted to D.C. regulators in mid-2015. In 2021, the project secured a $50 million donation from local investor Grant Verstandig’s family foundation, after which the pavilion is named.

The pavilion’s delivery allows MedStar to renovate the nearly 50-year-old hospital building. Dubbed “the backfill project,” the system intends to renovate its units over multiple years — fundamentally changing the hospital’s ability to meet growing demand for its services, which it’s also expanding.

MedStar Georgetown University Hospital Verstandig Pavilion