Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center plans a ground-breaking ceremony for its new hospital this morning as it continues to demolish the old Memphis Mental Health Institute building to make room for the $327 million expansion project.

In November, the hospital marked the start of demolition with ceremonial swings of a wrecking ball. The hospital picked Valentine's Day for the groundbreaking ceremony because its logo incorporates a heart -- the hospital plans to use heart-shaped shovels in the ceremony.

The expansion and renovation project will increase the hospital's total floor space from 610,000 square feet to about 1million square feet, including research and administrative areas. The centerpiece will be a new 12-story hospital building, and the total number of beds will increase from 199 to 225. Patient rooms will be private and have sleeping space for two parents.

Hospital leaders have said the renovation will meet higher demand for children's health services in the region and help make Le Bonheur one of the best children's hospitals in the nation.

The plan is to make the hospital a state-of-the-art icon for the Medical Center area, said president and CEO Meri Armour. She also said the project would help the hospital teach new health care workers and be a leader in pediatric medical research.

Workers have demolished two small buildings on the old mental health site and have removed asbestos from the large mental health building, which is now about 60 percent destroyed, said Dave Rosenbaum, vice president of facilities for Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, the nonprofit group that runs the children's hospital and other health facilities in the area.

Next week, workers plan to take the first steps toward building the new hospital's foundation, Rosenbaum said. Like Armour, he was wearing a pin marked "LeBuilder" in an interview Wednesday.

Once the new hospital building is complete in late summer or fall 2010, all the patients will be moved there and workers will start demolishing about two-thirds of the existing Le Bonheur hospital to make way for a new parking garage and driveway, he said.

The last third of the old building will be renovated for research and support purposes, and have two floors of scientific laboratories. The entire project is expected to be done by the end of 2011.

The hospital has raised almost $83 million toward its $100 million fund-raising goal, Armour said. Methodist plans to pay for the rest of the project by issuing bonds and spending existing funds.

Armour said the groundbreaking is an important moment.

"It's a big deal to invest $327million in this region, in this neighborhood for the services that we're going to provide," she said.