Academic Medical

The UWM Innovation Accelerator, funded in part by a federal economic development grant as the first building in a planned Innovation Park, is a public-private partnership that collocates business, industry, and academic research to launch intellectual property. The two-story building is sited to leverage the technology available in nearby institutions, such as the Milwaukee County Medical Complex, Children’s Hospital, and the Medical College of Wisconsin, and to attract researchers, faculty, students, industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and investors.

HCA Holdings is building the $109 million Oviedo Medical Center in Oviedo, Fla. Sited on 48 acres, the 198,000-sf project includes a 64-bed acute-care hospital, a 40,000-sf medical office building, and a freestanding emergency department. Designed by Gould Turner Group, Oviedo Medical Center will provide a full range of healthcare services including intensive care, cardiology, surgery, primary care, orthopedics, and labor and delivery. Occupancy is expected in early 2017.

Lexington Medical Center will begin construction in early summer of 2016 on an eight-story, 545,000-sf tower on its hospital campus in West Columbia, S.C. Designed by Perkins+Will, the $430 million expansion will accommodate 176 new inpatient beds as well as space for critical care, intensive care, surgery, and labor and delivery. The project will include renovation of existing hospital facilities as well as construction of a parking garage and a medical office building. Completion is expected in late 2018.

The 12-story McGlothlin Medical Education Center at Virginia Commonwealth University, completed in 2013, facilitates a new model of collaborative, team-based learning. The C3 curriculum—centered on the needs of the learner, clinically driven, and using competencies as outcomes—reflects a two-year process of reinventing the first and second years of medical school (M1-M2) involving the dean, faculty, executive-level curriculum staff, and students.

Auburn University began construction in February of 2016 on two new health science facilities in Auburn, Ala. Designed to support advanced instruction in team-based healthcare, the $29 million School of Nursing will feature simulation labs, active learning classrooms, and spacious interdisciplinary teaching labs. The three-story, 89,000-sf building will also provide research space, faculty offices, conference rooms, a tiered auditorium, and a student lounge.

Wake Forest Baptist Health is expanding the campus of Davie Medical Center in Bermuda Run, N.C. The $47 million addition will provide 50 inpatient beds as well as clinical space for geriatric and joint replacement services. Ground was broken on the project in December of 2015 and occupancy is expected in spring of 2017.

VU University Medical Center will begin construction in March of 2016 on the 172,222-sf VUmc Imaging Center Amsterdam. Providing flexible laboratories for biomedical research, the six-story facility will promote interaction and collaboration by collocating the hospital's radiology and nuclear medicine departments in a single location. The sustainably designed project will be constructed to attain a BREEAM Very Good rating by a joint venture of De Beeldbouwers VOF and Ballast Nedam.

Texas A&M University broke ground on the $12.6 million Human Clinical Research Facility in January of 2016. Located on the west campus in Canyon, Texas, the 20,000-sf project will accommodate clinical trials and programs for the College of Education and Human Development. Designed by PBK Architects, the facility will house the Exercise and Sport Nutrition Laboratory and the Center for Translational Research in Aging and Longevity.

Legacy Health opened its $27 million headquarters and central laboratory facility in January of 2016 in Portland, Ore. The 62,000-sf building was sustainably designed to provide substantial energy savings and increased operational efficiencies. The project doubles the footprint of Legacy's previous location and will enable the company to expand to meet the growing demand for laboratory services.

Kettering Health Network is building a $49 million comprehensive cancer center on its main hospital campus in Kettering, Ohio. Ground was broken in May of 2015 on the patient-centric facility, which will provide advanced cancer treatment technologies in a serene interior environment. The general contractor for the five-story, 120,000-sf project is Danis Building Construction. Completion is expected in late 2016.

Collin College opened the Cary A. Israel Health Sciences Center in January of 2016. Located on the Central Park campus in McKinney, Texas, the 125,000-sf facility provides classrooms, offices, and laboratories for programs in nursing, surgical technology, emergency services, respiratory care, and sleep disorders therapy. Designed by PBK Architects and built by Pogue Construction, the three-story project features a large simulation training center with advanced patient simulators and a 150-seat lecture hall.

Bellevue College opened its $21.8 million Health Sciences Building in December of 2015 in Bellevue, Wash. Designed by LMN Architects and built by Bayley Construction, the 70,500-sf facility provides classrooms and teaching labs for programs in imaging and nursing, as well as academic and administrative offices. The Health Sciences Building features a five-room simulation training lab and two clinical skills labs with a total of 20 hospital beds.

Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare has selected Turner Construction as the general contractor for a $280 million expansion of the Methodist University Hospital campus in Memphis, Tenn. Designed by HKS and Self + Tucker Architects, the project includes the creation of a 440,000-sf addition which will be delivered using an overbuild technique to construct a nine-story patient tower on top of the existing emergency department.

Complex technology, expanding program, and increasingly specialized and segmented roles and responsibilities often create a disconnect in the process of designing and building sophisticated facilities. The result can be a research or diagnostic lab or high-containment animal building that becomes a burden to the owner, whether because it hasn’t been right-sized, is not energy efficient, or operates with sub-par reliability. The solution is to assign someone the task of aligning design decisions with the building’s ultimate scientific mission.

Carleton University began construction in December of 2015 on a $52 million (USD$36.8 million) health sciences building in Ottawa. The seven-story, 120,000-sf facility will provide classrooms and open laboratories to support neuroscience and health sciences programs. The project will also include collaborative research space for the study of healthy aging and infectious diseases. Completion is expected in August of 2017.