Published on May 19, 2026
Arkansas Children’s has reached a landmark moment in the largest expansion in its 114-year history, with the first phase of a US$371 million system-wide build-out set to open at its newly renamed Little Rock campus in May 2026. The Little Rock facility, now known as the Arkansas Children’s Golisano Campus following a transformational US$50 million philanthropic gift from entrepreneur B. Thomas Golisano in December 2025, is the centrepiece of a multi-year programme spanning two campuses across the state. Phase one delivers a 150,000-square-foot outpatient care building connected to the main hospital via a new skybridge, a redesigned three-storey glass main entrance, and a campus park featuring native landscaping and walking paths. The new building houses an eight-room outpatient surgery centre on its third floor, with the capacity to expand to twelve operating rooms, a clinical laboratory with automated specimen-handling infrastructure on the second floor, and a Pediatric Clinical Research Unit tripling from six to sixteen exam rooms. Sports medicine, physical therapy and orthopaedic services occupy the ground floor. Nabholz Construction of Conway serves as lead contractor, with Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects and Cromwell Architects Engineers, both of Little Rock, as architects of record across the full programme. Interior renovation of the existing Little Rock hospital is scheduled to follow immediately after phase one opens.
A New Standard for Pediatric Infrastructure Across the American South
The scale of Arkansas Children’s investment positions the state firmly within a broader national wave of children’s hospital capital programmes, several of which are reshaping paediatric infrastructure across the southern United States. The project runs in parallel with a US$82.7 million expansion at Arkansas Children’s Northwest (ACNW) in Springdale, which is adding four new floors to the west wing of that campus, increasing inpatient bed capacity from 25 to 40, adding two operating rooms, a procedure room and a dedicated endoscopy suite, all expected to open by December 2026. A third construction strand, the 65,000-square-foot National Center for Opioid and Addiction Research (NCOAR), topped out its steel structure in January 2026 and is slated to open in 2027, funded largely by US$55 million in opioid and vaping settlement funds through the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office. For context, the ongoing University of Mississippi Medical Center children’s hospital expansion represents a comparable regional investment aimed at closing gaps in paediatric specialty access across the Deep South. This broader expansion pattern is also evident in the Northeast, where major health systems are advancing multi-phase redevelopment programs such as Project Imagine at Cooper University Health Care in Camden, a large-scale investment designed to expand clinical capacity and modernize hospital infrastructure to meet rising demand. What differentiates the Arkansas Children’s programme is its scope: across both campuses it will deliver 265,000 square feet of new space and 170,000 square feet of renovated space, recruit more than 150 new providers and over 400 additional staff, and run for eight years to 2031. Fiscal year 2025 saw Arkansas Children’s serve more than 196,000 children, its highest patient volume on record, making the case for expansion straightforward.
Project Fact Sheet
- Project Name: Arkansas Children’s System-Wide Expansion (Golisano Campus and ACNW)
- Location: Arkansas Children’s Golisano Campus, Little Rock, Arkansas; Arkansas Children’s Northwest, Springdale, Arkansas
- Project Value: US$371 million total system investment (US$318 million construction; US$50 million Golisano philanthropic gift; US$55 million NCOAR state funding)
- Client/Owner: Arkansas Children’s (state’s only dedicated paediatric health system)
- Main Contractor: Nabholz Construction, Conway, Arkansas
- Architects of Record: Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects and Cromwell Architects Engineers (both Little Rock)
- Key Components: 150,000 sq ft outpatient surgery centre and clinical building (Little Rock); skybridge; redesigned campus entrance and park; 72,000 sq ft ACNW expansion (Springdale); 65,000 sq ft National Center for Opioid and Addiction Research (Little Rock)
- Total New and Renovated Space: 265,000 sq ft new space plus 170,000 sq ft renovated space across both campuses
- Construction Start: 2024 (phased across multiple packages)
- Expected Completion: Phase one (Little Rock outpatient building) May 2026; ACNW expansion December 2026; NCOAR 2027; full programme approximately 2031
- Workforce Impact: More than 150 new providers and over 400 new employees recruited statewide across the programme
- Strategic Impact: Expands paediatric bed capacity, introduces dedicated outpatient surgical infrastructure, establishes a first-of-its-kind national opioid research centre, and reduces need for Arkansas families to travel outside the state for specialist care
Project Team
- Client/Owner: Arkansas Children’s (President and CEO: Marcy Doderer)
- Main Contractor: Nabholz Construction, Conway, Arkansas
- Architects of Record: Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects, Little Rock; Cromwell Architects Engineers, Little Rock
- Lead Donor (Golisano Campus Naming Gift): B. Thomas Golisano (US$50 million; founder, Paychex Inc.)
- NCOAR Co-Funder and Partner: Arkansas Attorney General’s Office (US$55 million opioid and vaping settlement funds)
- NCOAR Research Director: Dr Alicia Allen, behavioural epidemiologist specialising in opioid use disorder
- Secondary Donor (ACNW Naming Gift): Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation (US$25 million; ACNW renamed Arkansas Children’s Pat Walker Campus in Springdale)
- Regulatory Oversight: Arkansas Department of Health (state health facility licensing)
