Academic Medical

University Health System opened the Sky Tower in San Antonio in April of 2014. The 10-story, 1 million-sf facility provides 420 private inpatient rooms, an 84-bed emergency department, 35 operating rooms, and a trauma center. LEED Gold sustainable design certification will be sought for the tower, which features robotic technology for the delivery of medical equipment. The project is part of a $900 million capital improvement plan that included construction of a new clinical pavilion on the Brady Green campus.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill dedicated the $245 million Marsico Hall in March of 2014. The nine-story, 340,000-sf biomedical imaging facility will support basic and translational research in oncology, nanomedicine, microbiology, immunology, and pharmaceutical engineering. Marisco Hall houses a hybrid MRI/PET whole body scanner, a 7 Tesla MRI whole body scanner, and a cyclotron.

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is planning to build a new research facility in the Schuylkill district. Designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli and Cooper Robertson & Partners, the first phase of the project will include a tower up to 24 stories high providing dry labs, offices, and clinical research space. The facility will include a parking garage and a pedestrian bridge.

The University of California, San Diego dedicated the $113 million Health Sciences Biomedical Research Facility in March of 2014 in La Jolla, Calif. Designed by ZGF Architects, the 196,000-sf building provides wet bench laboratories, open lab space, lab support, offices, conference rooms, and an interaction atrium. A basement level accommodates core labs and mechanical systems.

Institutions that educate medical professionals are building an increasing number of simulation centers in response to the need for more hands-on, interdisciplinary, real-life training scenarios. Although these facilities can generate revenue, the expense of the equipment and related costs make it difficult to be profitable. But, with the use of creative design strategies, institutions can improve utilization and generate income.

Lakeland Regional Medical Center is planning to build a $250 million women's and children's pavilion in Lakeland, Fla. The eight-story, 300,000-sf inpatient facility will include a pediatric emergency center, a level III neonatal ICU, 12 labor and delivery suites, three surgical suites, and physician offices. The pavilion will feature private patient rooms and is slated for completion in 2017.

Tartu University Hospital is planning to build a 420,000-sf medical campus in Tartu, Estonia. Consolidating all hospital functions in a single location, the campus will include an oncology center, internal medicine and ophthalmology clinics, laboratories, a pharmacy, and facilities for the departments of pathology, endoscopy, and cardiac surgery. The project is supported by $29 million in loan funding from the Nordic Investment Bank. Completion is expected in September of 2015.
 

Nova Southeastern University broke ground in February of 2014 on the 215,000-sf Center for Collaborative Research (CCR) in Davie, Fla. The $80 million multidisciplinary facility will house wet labs, an IBM supercomputer research suite, the Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine, the Rumbaugh-Goodwin Institute for Cancer Research, and the Emil Buehler Research Center for Engineering, Science, and Mathematics. The building will also accommodate the General Clinical Research Center, the NSU Technology Incubator, and space for the United States Geological Survey.

The University of Scranton is building a $47.5 million center for rehabilitation education in Scranton, Pa. Supporting an interprofessional medical education pedagogy, the 116,000-sf facility will provide classrooms, simulation training suites, faculty offices, and 25 laboratories for programs in occupational therapy, physical therapy, and exercise science. The center was designed by Hemmler + Camayd and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson in association with HERA Laboratory Planners.

The following is a condensed transcript of a panel discussion that took place at Tradeline’s Academic Medical and Health Science Centers 2013 Conference. The panelists are Ian McDermott, senior director of MedRIST, University Health Network, and Scott Kelsey, managing principal at CO Architects. The moderator is Derek Westfall, president of Tradeline.

Seton Health is partnering with the University of Texas Dell Medical School to build a $295 million teaching hospital in Austin. General contractor JE Dunn will begin construction on the facility in mid-2014 with completion expected in 2017. The hospital will replace the existing University Medical Center Brackenridge and will be owned and operated by Seton, a subsidiary of Ascension Health.

Community colleges are fulfilling an increasingly important roll in higher education, particularly in allied health fields, and as a result are focusing on modern facilities and equipment to provide hands-on training. Elgin Community College (ECC) in Illinois recently opened a new, state-of-the-art Health & Life Sciences building, which is helping the college achieve its goals of remaining competitive and expanding program offerings.

Nevada State College broke ground in January of 2014 on the $32 million Nursing & Sciences Building in Las Vegas. Designed by PGAL, the 66,000-sf facility will provide advanced science labs, classrooms, faculty offices, an auditorium, and computer labs. The construction manager for the project is Ledcor. Completion is expected in August of 2015.

The six-story, 296,500-sf University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston’s School of Dentistry includes dental clinics, simulation and pre-clinical labs, clinical support labs, a clinical research lab, classrooms, learning resource center, student center, and administrative space. The building is divided into three zones: patient and public areas on the lower floors, topped by student areas, then faculty and staff areas on the upper floors.

Gundersen Health System opened the $180 million Legacy Building in January of 2014 in La Crosse, Wis. The 430,000-sf facility comprises six patient care floors and two service floors and features entirely private patient rooms. Designed to optimize workflows with dynamic functional adjacencies, the Legacy Building includes an emergency services department with integrated trauma and urgent care. The general contractor for the project was Kraus-Anderson Construction.