Building Barrow

By K. Robert Wendel

By April, St. Joseph's Hospital Barrow Neurological Institute, which is world-renowned for its cutting-edge medical treatments, will be able to treat even more people with the completion of a new, seven-story tower.

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Phoenix-based Kitchell
Contractors teamed with Los Angeles architects Perkins & Will to construct the approximately $90 million project on the campus of St. Joseph's Hospital on Thomas Road near downtown Phoenix.

Construction kicked off in March 2004 with excavation of a below-grade level.

"The foundation is about 16 ft. below grade, so we had to take a lot of material out," said John Kuhn, a civil engineer >> with Phoenix Evans Kuhn and Associates Inc.

"Because the site is so confined, we did a soil-nailing operation to stabilize the edges of the foundation to minimize the over excavation."

The steel-framed building sits on concrete friction piers and features a host of technically challenging design geometry. Four stories jut out in a V-shape like a ship's prow and come to a sharp point over the new ambulance entrance. Both wings of the 144-bed tower feature these V-shaped ends, which will be enclosed with glass curtain walls and function as nurses' break rooms.

"Most break rooms for nurses are off in a dark and dreary corner with no light," said architect Russell Triplett of Perkins and Will. "Here, the nurses are going to get some outstanding views of the Phoenix skyline. It's about keeping the staff happy."

The four stories are cantilevered off a Vierendeel truss, spanning 96 ft. long and four stories high. The Vierendeel truss is an open web girder with vertical beams rigidly connected to the top and bottom chords but without diagonal brace beams. Phoenix-based Schuff Steel fabricated, detailed and erected more than 3,100 tons of steel on the project.

"That end of the building is a pretty interesting part to deal with," said structural engineer Mark Larsen of Phoenix-based Paragon Design. "In fact, that Vierendeel span projects off two corners, giving us a 36-ft. cantilever four stories high."

The first three floor plates of the building are approximately 50,000 sq. ft. each, stepping back to 35,000 sq. ft. on the top four stories. The seventh floor will remain shell space for future expansion.

In addition to the 144 beds, plans call for 11 operating rooms, including a "super-cool" room that can be brought to 55 degrees in just three minutes.

The super-cool operating room is generally used to slow down a patient's metabolism during brain surgeries.

Of the 144 beds, 48 are intensive-care units. The grade level is the hospital's emergency department, with the second floor functioning as the operating room. Floors four through six will house patient rooms.

The project features a host of programming requirements and features that usually are not seen in other hospitals. Builders are expanding the hospital's emergency department on the first floor, adding a new and more secure ambulance entrance and constructing a heavy-duty helipad on the roof of the seventh floor. Unlike most hospitals, the new BNI tower features the heavy imaging equipment on the second floor, rather than the first.

"There are MRIs on elevated floors, which is not the norm," Larsen said. "The entire operating room floor is elevated as well, so we had a lot of vibration criteria to deal with."

Also, the new tower doesn't have waiting rooms. Architects designed "destination points," such as a business center >> and child's play area, along with a small movie theater.

"The design is very family friendly," Triplett said. "Patients might be in surgery for six to 10 hours, so rather than sticking a family in a room with a TV for 10 hours, we have developed a different way to deal with it."

The BNI tower does share other hospitals' complex electrical and mechanical requirements. Because the new tower must interface with the existing tower, floor-to-ceiling heights had to remain consistent. Newer hospitals can have 10 ft. to 12 ft. ceiling heights, but the existing St. Joe's tower was designed in the 80's with 10-ft. ceilings. That resulted in a complex web of electrical and mechanical runs, with many barely clearing obstacles.

Builders turned to three-dimensional CAD software to help iron out the kinks. The mechanical systems are so large, the entire third floor and the roof will house mechanical systems. Tempe's Tri-City Mechanical installed the systems with Phoenix-based Corbins Electric performing the electrical work.

"The 3D CAD work took six months because it was so complicated," said Kitchell project manager Jeff Deitschel. "It was well worth it because it helped minimize potential change orders, and overall installation costs. If we hadn't have done it, it would have been a nightmare."