While it’s safe to say virtually every hospital project designed and built in California is challenging, given the sheer vastness of such facilities and the regulatory process they must undergo, a $150-plus million expansion for Mercy General Hospital, Sacramento, has faced its share of difficulties since planning for it began nearly four years ago.

Team Players
Client: Catholic Healthcare West
Project Manager: Stahl Companies
Architect: HDR, Inc.

Currently in preconstruction, the project team includes DPR as general contractor, HDR of Pasadena as architect, and The Stahl Companies as the owner’s project manager. Thus far, the team has successfully dealt with logistical complexities associated with an extremely tight site, design redirection and modifications, and overcoming neighborhood resistance to the project. Ultimately, the end product will be well worth the effort: an architecturally stunning, state-of-the-art facility that will meet the growing healthcare needs of the East Sacramento area while complying with the new seismic requirements for critical care facilities in California.

The centerpiece of the project is the new Alex G. Spanos Heart Center, a 170,000-sq.-ft., five-story building that will greatly enhance Mercy General’s cardiac and heart program. Also included is the complete remodel of approximately 35,000 sq. ft. of the existing hospital’s North Wing and work on an additional 15,000 sq. ft. of “Get-Ready” projects in preparation for starting the Heart Center. There will also be an expansion to the existing parking garage, a new surface parking lot, and new interim emergency and main entries to the facility among other things.

Driven partially by the California statute, Senate Bill 1953 (SB 1953), that requires all acute care inpatient hospital buildings to meet stricter seismic retrofit requirements by the year 2008, or if an extension was granted 2013, the construction of the new center will enable Mercy General to continue providing uninterrupted service in the Sacramento community. The current design of the new building’s craftsman-style architecture will feature a brick exterior skin with cultured stone accents. Additional highlights include a unique “healing garden” and various interior features designed to promote a healing atmosphere, including extensive use of natural lighting and features to reduce noise and enhance patient safety. Stained glass from an existing chapel in the facility will be removed and reused in a new chapel planned within the Heart Center.

Sensitive to the concerns of neighbors and an elementary school located across the street, the team designed a foundation system that will use drilled auger cast piles rather than concrete piles, allowing for much quicker and less disruptive installation. In addition, the team recently held a balloon tethering event to help the local community visualize the size and massing of the new facility. Helium balloons were raised to the proper elevation at the building corners to provide a visual footprint and three-dimensional feel for the structure.

According to DPR’s Project Executive Pete Kreuser, who has been on the project from inception, most of the logistical challenges that the DPR team has been tackling during preconstruction relate to the tight project site, which includes a main thoroughfare road running right down the middle of it. In addition, the team faces the logistical challenge of tying the new heart center into the existing wing via an underground tunnel, all while maintaining complete patient access and full operation of the existing facility.

Currently, the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD), the state agency that regulates hospital construction in California, is reviewing the five separate building packages submitted for the new Heart Center at the same time that the project is undergoing an entitlement process with the city of Sacramento. The tentative construction start date is now slated for June of next year, with an associated completion date of late 2010 for the new Center and of early 2012 for the remodel work.

Despite the hurdles, DPR’s Regional Manager, Alan Schleiger, notes that the team has worked well together to keep moving the project forward. “The team has been very cohesive and collaborative along the way, overcoming a number of challenges with good coordination and continuous dialogue,” he comments. “Ultimately, this will be a beautiful facility that should serve the community well for years to come.”