Shriners Children’s Shreveport Breaks Ground on New Future Home

Shriners Children's Shreveport marked a new investment in specialized pediatric care by breaking ground on a future 43,000 square-foot pediatric outpatient facility.

Located just across the street from the current facility at the corner of Kings Highway and Samford Avenue, the building will better meet the growing demand for specialized pediatric orthopedic, sports medicine, and cleft lip and palate care.

"We're going to meet the needs of our current patients while also anticipating the growing number of children who need specialized care in a family-centered environment," said Susan Bryant, Shriners Children's Shreveport Administrator.

The outpatient facility holds nearly 17,000 clinic appointments annually and provides more than 800 surgeries through arrangements with other medical facilities.

The new facility will include 19 clinic rooms, a state-of-the-art motion analysis center, two radiology suites with low-dose imaging technology, casting rooms, laboratory services, and an outdoor play area. Comprehensive rehabilitative services including physical, occupational, and speech therapy will be available, with a dedicated sports medicine gym supporting return-to-sport and injury recovery. The facility will also continue to build and provide custom orthotic and prosthetic devices via an expanded Pediatric Orthotic and Prosthetic Services (POPS) space.

Leaders from Shriners Children's, Shriners International and Shriners Children's Shreveport, along with community stakeholders, patients and families, gathered for a brief ceremony to mark the next chapter for the international nonprofit healthcare system.

"The way children receive care is changing," said Chairman of the Board of Trustees Leslie D. Stewart, M.D. "A child may come to us for an evaluation, a procedure, rehabilitation, imaging, a brace fitting or follow-up care - and go home the same day. Shriners Children's healthcare spaces are designed around the needs of our families, emerging technologies and more ways for our clinical teams to collaborate."

Shriners Children's opened its first hospital in Shreveport in 1922, with the facility transitioning to its current building in 1986.

"Shreveport is where the Shriners Children's healthcare system began more than a century ago, and it remains an important part of our future as our network continues to grow," said Imperial Potentate Larry Leib, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Shriner's Children's.

Construction of the new facility is expected to begin within the next few months, with an anticipated opening in spring of 2028.