BOARDMAN, Ohio - Akron Children's Hospital Mahoning Valley is expanding it's emergency department at it's Boardman Campus.

A million-dollar donation came from Lenny Fisher, who is also the CEO of Handel's Ice Cream.

Fisher told 21 News he is choosing to donate to the children's hospital because of his own son's complications at birth.

"It was 1982, and my son was born at Northside Hospital. At the time, we had Tod Children's Hospital in the area," Fisher said. "He had some complications at birth and without the children's hospital, he never would have made it."

Fisher chose to donate after seeing the need for expansion while touring the Beeghly Campus' emergency department.

"I took a tour of the hospital one day, the emergency wing, and it was something out of a nightmare," Fisher said to 21 News. "I saw beds in the hallway and everything was cramped. There was no place for families to come and have a discussion about their child and I said, there's a need here."

The new facility will increase the emergency department's square footage from 9,600 to more than 34,000.

It will feature 23 treatment rooms and three behavioral health rooms, designed with input from patient families and staff.

"The original emergency room was designed to handle about 80 patients a day and and our peak times, we were taking care of about 125 patients a day," said Paul Olivier, Vice President of Akron Children's Hospital Mahoning Valley. 

Olivier said the expansion allows for up to 125 patients. He added they continue to see an increase in behavioral health patients and the new behavioral health rooms with help drastically.

"When we have a patients that has those special needs and they're in that room, they're usually in there for quite a long time," Olivier said. "We will be essentially going from one to three so we're tripling our capacity."

Construction on the project is expected to begin this fall and open in the spring of 2023.

"It's such a great facility to have in this area," Fisher said. "It's needed. It's needed by the children, it's needed by the families. The money's going to stay here. It's going to help the children here."

Olivier said they are still raising funds for their project, estimated at $30 million dollars. Go to their website to donate.