Towers of Healing

‘Banner’ Year for Phoenix Healthcare Provider

Arizona’s largest healthcare provider, Banner Health, is expanding at a rapid pace. Profiled here are three of Banner’s new hospital towers and expansions in the Valley of the Sun.

By David M. Brown

Banner Health is undergoing a dramatic growth spurt.

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After the January 2005 opening of the Banner Estrella Medical Center in west Phoenix, Banner Baywood Medical Center in Mesa on October 2006 and Banner Gateway Medical Center in Gilbert in September, the healthcare nonprofit has several other projects under way. Headquartered in Phoenix, Banner Health is the state’s largest health system and its second-largest employer. The company owns 21 hospitals in Arizona and throughout the West.

Banner Desert Children’s Hospital

The $328 million expansion of Banner Desert Medical Center in Mesa will add a seven-story patient tower for Banner’s children’s hospital at the site.

Image courtesy HDR Architecture

The seven-story patient tower for the Banner Children’s Hospital at 1400 S. Dobson Rd. in Mesa is emerging from staging, with the steel structure under way.

The $230 million pediatric tower is part of a $328 million expansion project on the campus of Banner Desert Medical Center, which opened in 1973. The expanded facility will include pediatric operating rooms, pre-op and recovery space, pediatric emergency department, outpatient treatment center and other services.

Bill Byron, senior director of public relations for Banner, says he expects the tower to open in late 2009 or early 2010. Kitchell Contractors healthcare Division of Phoenix is the lead contractor, and HDR Architecture served as the architect.

When the tower opens, it will include 248 beds, with the capability to build an additional 120-bed tower for a total of 368 pediatric beds.

Already completed in 2007 as part of the campus expansion were a $13 million, 1,221-space, precast concrete parking structure and pedestrian bridge; $9 million loading dock and shops building; and new emergency department parking lot, says Jim Pullen, project director for Kitchell.

Pullen says the $8 million, 29-bed neonatal intensive care unit should be completed in March and the $25 million central utility plant expansion in February 2009. When the tower opens, Kitchell will begin $21 million of renovations to the existing departments, including emergency, pharmacy, dietary and surgery. It also will add 11 more NICU beds. This phase is scheduled for completion in October 2011.

Because the new tower joins the existing hospital, crews had to maintain access to patients, staff and deliveries. “It’s a challenge to work in such close proximity to existing operations, so we are working closely with the hospital staff to minimize noise and vibrations,” Pullen says.

The NICU expansion will add two stories above the surgery department next to the existing NICU. “Setting steel was a challenge due to the reach, tying in all of the new utilities under floor above the surgery was a huge undertaking, and coordinating all of the utility shutdowns and tie-ins with all of the existing and new systems took a lot of coordination with the hospital,” he says.

Ensuring that the expansion is “kid friendly” and seen “through the eyes of a child” has required close communication among all team members, Pullen says. “The underlying theme is bringing the outdoors indoor and introducing nature to the project,” he adds.

The main entry will feature a barrel-shaped stone design inspired by the shape of the agave plant, with a glass-curtain wall behind which rises from the ground level to seven stories.

Banner Thunderbird

The Banner Thunderbird Medical Center in Glendale is undergoing a $289 million expansion, including the construction of a new six-story tower.

Photo courtesy McCarthy Building Cos

Glendale’s Banner Thunderbird Medical Center began construction in June on a new 200-bed south tower and a three-story north building, including a new lobby, gift shop, dining area, administrative offices, physicians dining room, chapel, patient and family learning center and a surgery guest lobby.

Structural steel for the 290,000-sq-ft tower should top off in April, public relations director Byron says.

The Tempe office of St. Louis, Mo.-based McCarthy Building Cos. is the construction manager at risk, and NTD Architecture’s Phoenix office is the architect.

The project is broken into phases with the north building and a central plant expansion completing in June, the south tower by second quarter 2009 and remodeling of existing facilities by September 2010. The six-story tower with basement will be the tallest structure in the Northwest Valley.

When completed, the $289 million expansion will add 84 exam rooms in the new emergency department on the ground level of the tower and two additional operating rooms. The remodeled space will include an expanded pharmacy, lab, food services and other renovations to facilities vacated by departments moving into the new tower.

The project is being completed on a fast-track schedule, says Jeff Clarkson, vice president with McCarthy. Chris Jacobson is the project director for McCarthy.

For the new patient tower, NTD encountered limited physical site space as well as the need to integrate with existing healthcare services, convert existing facilities and link to the central plant expansion. “This integration heavily influenced the final selection of materials as well as the functional layout and placement of both the new entry and patient tower,” says Russell Combs, associate project designer.

The project’s expedited design assist required the packaging of the project into six different construction document packages/city permits. “This entailed a close and continuous coordination with city of Glendale officials to keep the process streamlined” and required a comprehensive design-assist process between the structural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineers and subcontractors, says Maha Abou-Haidar, NTD principal.

The footprint for the new south tower is bordered by existing structures on three sides, which made the basement excavation particularly challenging, Clarkson says. The team also had to relocate almost every major utility for the hospital out of the building footprint to allow for the excavation. McCarthy and Banner coordinated more than 150 individual disruptions and shut downs without affecting patient care, he says.

In addition, McCarthy had to arrange demolition both at the north lobby and south tower. The existing lobby was removed along with a portion of the existing emergency department and ambulance drive, Clarkson says. His team carefully reviewed methods and tools to mitigate noise and vibration.

At the north lobby, McCarthy had the existing concrete decks sawcut into small pieces and chipped out by hand. “Traditionally, this would have been removed with larger equipment, creating significant vibration and noise,” Clarkson says. “Instead, we took the extra time to ensure that patient care remained at the highest level.”

Banner Baywood

The 170,000-sq-ft, seven-story patient tower at Banner Baywood Medical Center, 6644 E. Baywood Drive in Mesa, opened on schedule in October 2006. The cast-in-place concrete tower added 120 beds to the facility.

The $94 million Baywood renovation and expansion project also included a three-level precast parking structure; built-in-place cooling tower; 2,500 sq ft of new central plant space; upgraded electrical facilities; 44,000 sq ft of interior remodel work; a 26-bed ICU; two levels of operating rooms; expanded pharmacy; lab radiology; and other services.
Serving as construction manager at risk was Phoenix-based Layton Construction Co. of Arizona, a subsidiary of the Layton Cos. of Sandy, Utah. The Phoenix office of Westlake Reed Leskosky was the architect.

The existing patient floors are 12-ft, 10-in. floor-to-floor, which are very minimal by today’s construction standards, says Vince Leskosky, AIA, IIDA, principal architect on the project.

The design called for a seamless connection between old and new buildings because of the continuous movement of staff, patients, visitors and services between them. “The real challenge was to fit within the ceiling plenum the required structure, plumbing, ductwork, electrical and other building systems,” Leskosky says.

Detailed 3-D computer analysis indicated that a flat-slab, poured-in-place structural system was the only solution.

“Constructing the new tower, parking structure, central plant, as well as making renovations inside the existing hospital were extremely difficult while working in and around an active hospital,” says Pradeep Dugar, Layton’s project manager.

He adds that construction and renovation tied into all major utilities of the hospital, requiring backup water supplies and electrical generators.

To make the connections, he and his staff had to coordinate with the hospital for approximately 1,000 planned shutdowns and impacts to the medical center’s utilities and departments.

The Future

Banner is planning two new medical centers in the Phoenix area. In neighboring Pinal County, construction on the 80-acre Banner Ironwood Medical Center began last month southeast of Queen Creek. The hospital is scheduled to open its first phase, a four-story 86-bed patient tower, at the end of 2009 and grow eventually to more than 600 beds as the community expands. McCarthy is the general contractor.

Banner has also purchased 60 acres of land in the West Valley’s planned community of Verrado, in Buckeye north of Interstate 10 and west of Verrado Way. That campus will also be built in phases beginning with primary care services and will eventually include a hospital as the area grows.

Key Players

Banner Baywood
Architect: Westlake Reed Leskowsky
Contractor: Layton Construction Co.
Subcontractors: Delta Diversified Electrical; Suntec Concrete; Tri-City Mechanical

Banner Children’s Hospital
Architect: HDR Architecture
Contractor: Kitchell Contractors
Subcontractors: Schuff Steel; Dynamic Systems; Hardrock Concrete; Ace Asphalt

Banner Thunderbird
Architect: NTD Architecture
Contractor: McCarthy Building Cos.
Subcontractors: Delta Diversified; AmFab Steel; Miller Bonded; Western States Fire Protection

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