Image courtesy of Isgenuity

Citing an “urgent need” for more single patient rooms, Franciscan Hospital for Children is proposing to build a new 241,750-square-foot clinical building on its Brighton campus.

The COVID-19 pandemic and rising need for psychiatric services for pediatric patients have generated more demand for services, and the hospital’s current space constraints hinder its ability to admit clients and pair them with compatible roommates, hospital officials said in proposing the project.

The project will relocate and reconfigure the hospital for single-patient rooms, add new family and visitor space and relocate programs to maximize efficiency, according to the institutional master plan amendment submitted this week to the Boston Planning & Development Agency.

The new clinical building would replace a parking lot and the hospital’s 74-year-old building 7, a former convent that spans 30,100 square feet, on the 30 Warren St. campus.

The project also includes a new 8,500-square-foot building that would contain a gymnasium, lobby and storage space and connect to the Kennedy Day School, a special education school located on the campus.

The project team includes architects Isgenuity of Boston, BR&A Consulting Engineers, Epsilon Assoc., Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Haley & Aldrich and legal counsel Goulston & Storrs.

Following approval by the BPDA and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the project would break ground and is estimated to take up to three years to complete.

Hospitals’ preference for single-bed patient rooms has generated demand for new real estate developments nationwide, including local projects at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.

In October, Mass General broke ground on a 1.5 million-square-foot expansion of its West End campus that’s designed to relieve emergency room overcrowding and provide more single-bed rooms for patients.