Healthcare

The new California Public Health Laboratory in Richmond will be one of the nation's largest public health facilities. Scheduled to open in three phases, the first 160,000-sf lab building was dedicated this week. The entire campus is estimated to be completed in 2004 and will contain 700,000-sf of labs, housing 1,300 employees. Six labs currently in Berkeley, Emeryville and Oakland will be consolidated in the new facility, providing space for research and testing of infectious, environmental, and genetic diseases.

Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center has plans for a comprehensive new cancer center. The $75 million, 257,350-sf outpatient facility will consolidate all existing oncology services. If approved, construction will soon begin on the planned four-story building, with completion estimated for summer of 2003.  

The Boston Regional Medical Center is slated to be redeveloped into the Stoneham Executive Center, an R&D park with office, medical and biotechnology facilities. The $50 million project proposed by the Gutierrez Co. would include modifications to the existing developed 40.7-acre site and construction of 540,000 sf of space in three new office buildings, to be completed around August of 2002.

Reston Hospital Center is planning a three story addition, expanding the facility by 100,000 sf. Housing the maternity ward as well as administrative and community education departments, the addition will cost approximately $21.5 million. A 5,000-sf expansion of the special procedures area and a new 439-space parking garage will also begin construction in March. State approval is pending on another addition of 2 floors to the new maternity unit, increasing the bed space by 60 and providing emergency and radiology facilities.

Santa Clara Valley Medical Center is consolidating its four San Jose service sites into a new 230,000-sf, $93.8 million facility. Due to open in 2005, the new facility will accommodate up to 200,000 patient visits yearly, and house the relocation of over 28 medical services. Demolition of an existing administration building on site will precede construction. An additional $21 million, 50,000-sf outpatient facility on the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds will replace the existing 10,500-sf building. It is scheduled to open in 2003.

A new hospital and parking garage will replace Kaiser Permanente's Vallejo Medical Center. As well as meeting new state earthquake standards, the facility will increase licensed bed space from 294 to 332 and add a 1,100 space parking garage. Ground will be broken on the parking garage in summer of 2001 and be completed in 2002. The hospital will be built between early 2004 and 2007.

Providence Hospital's new Goffredi Operating Suite opened in May in Northeast D.C.  The $10 million, 45,000-sf state-of-the-art building will house a 37 bed pre- and post-operative recovery space, 8 operating suites and centralized supply storage in a "sterile core".  Replacing the existing 24,000-sf OR facility, the Goffredi building will include technological features such as the Aesop and Hermes robotic surgery systems, as well as articulating arms for additional surgical lighting. 

The Veterans Administration has awarded a contract to LCOR Inc. of Berwyn, Pa., to develop a $150 million, 600,000-sf medical and research complex across the street from the Duke University Medical Center in Durham. The project will include 19,000 sf of primary care clinic space and 40,000 sf of medical and research space, plus retail and commercial space and parking on a 3.5-acre lot. As many as seven buildings are planned, with construction scheduled to begin in 2001.

The Veterans Administration has awarded a contract to LCOR of Berwyn, Pa., to develop a $150-million, 600,000-sf medical and research complex across the street from the Duke University Medical Center in Durham. The project will include 19,000 sf of primary care clinic space and 40,000 sf of medical and research space, plus retail and commercial space with parking on a 3.5-acre lot. As many as seven buildings are planned, with construction scheduled to begin in 2001. NBBJ, based in Research Triangle Park, N.C., is the designer for the project.

Thomas Jefferson University’s planned $140-million Kimmel Cancer Center, a cancer treatment and research center, will be postponed for one year as the university raises funds for the project and searches for a solution to a potentially critical parking situation envisioned when a 400-car parking garage is demolished to make way for the new center.  The planned 380,000-sf structure, designed by the architectural firm of Perkins & Will of Chicago, will reach 20 stories and include underground parking spaces for 200 cars.

National Institutes of Health has three major projects under construction. The Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center is a $360 million, 600,000-gsf replacement hospital plus an additional 850,000 sf of research labs. The Washington office of Portland, Ore.-based Zimmer Gunsul Frasca designed the "clinical research model" building, with labs close to patient care units. Completion is anticipated in December 2002.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to have a guide in place by January 2001 for hospitals on "The Policy of the Reuse of Single Use Devices".

The strategy proposes the following:-to treat hospitals that reprocess single use devices in the same way it treats device manufactures

-to require submission of premarketing data as if reprocessors were seeking to market device for the first time

-to require reprocessors to label single use devices and provide instructions for use.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, has begun a $163 million renovation and expansion of the hospitals that merged in 1996. The four-year project has begun with the renovation of 60 post partum rooms to accommodate private showers, VCRs, a sleep chair and refrigerator, all of which is scheduled for completion by the end of summer 2000.

The National Fire and Protection Agency (NFPA) has partnered with Western Fire Chiefs Association (WFCA) and the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO) to build a set of Consensus Codes--a new set of codes for the built environment. Their goal is to provide safety officials with a new consistent and compatible set of codes by the year 2003. As part of the Consensus Code project NFPA also plans to devise a NFPA Building Code.

Fort Sam Houston's historic Brooke Army Medical Center and the Beach pavilion Complex will be redeveloped by the U.S. Army working in partnership with the Pennsylvania firm Roy F. Weston Inc. as prime contractor. Local firms involved in the project are Orion Partners, Cross & Company and Ford, Powell & Carson.