Elective Procedure

Summerlin Hospital Goes Under the Knife for $100 Million Upgrade

After a decade of service, this popular medical center in Summerlin is already adding a third tower to meet the medical needs of the surrounding community.

By Tony Illia

Summerlin Hospital Medical Center in Las Vegas is undergoing a $100 million surgical procedure.

The 11-year-old, 281-bed facility at 657 Town Center Drive is adding a third patient tower and parking garage and expanding its emergency room. The hospital, on 40 acres, is part of the Valley Health System owned by UHS Inc. of King of Prussia, Pa. It has roughly 1,400 employees.

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“We’re growing to meet the needs of our community,” says Claude Wise, the hospital’s associate administrator. “This expansion has been carefully planned to incorporate the types of medical services our community needs and will not only add rooms but will allow us to expand our services.”

Las Vegas-based SR Construction is the project’s general contractor, and HKS Inc. of Dallas is the architect.

The three-phase expansion, which broke ground in June 2007, began with a four-story, 610-space precast concrete parking garage. The 200,000-sq-ft structure opened in April.

Phase two tripled the space of the hospital’s emergency room, bringing it from 10,000 sq ft to 33,000 sq ft. The steel-framed, low-rise expansion gave it 24 more beds for a total of 48. The E.R. area currently treats 100 people a day.

Steady demand meant the E.R. needed to remain operational during construction, so SR built a new portion northwest of the E.R., which housed operations while renovation took place inside the existing portion. The revamped E.R. opened in December with an eight-bed pediatric area as well as clinical decision/observation beds.

The new emergency room’s interior adds 24 new beds to treat an average of 100 patients a day.( Photo courtesy SR Construction)

There is also a five-bed, chest pain center and a fast-track treatment area for patients with minor injuries and illnesses. It boasts lead-lined, dedicated radiology X-ray and CT scanner rooms that fast-track diagnostic testing for short turnaround times. It has roughly $10 million worth of equipment.

The reconfigured E.R. also features a dedicated ambulance porte-cochere dropoff.

Phase three consists of a six-story patient tower addition with 176 private patient rooms, bringing the hospital’s inventory to 457 rooms. The steel-skeleton tower with moment-frame connections is clad in EIFS and glass and rests atop a spread-footing and slab foundation. It’s located at the southwest portion of the hospital campus.

The 170,000-sq-ft structure ties into the hospital’s central plant, where chillers, boilers and cooling tower were added to service the building. The 140-ft-tall tower, which has three roof-mounted air handlers, each weighing 50,000 lbs, is capable of up to 12 air exchanges an hour.

The building has backup power as well as medical gas, a nurse call system and remote electrical patient monitoring.

The sixth floor is being shelled-out for future use as needed, but it’s capable of adding up to another 36 patient beds.

The new emergency room opened in December with a covered drop-off area to serve the average 24 ambulances arriving daily. (Photo courtesy SR Construction)

The tower has 27 postpartum beds, 36 neonatal intensive care beds and seven labor delivery beds on the second level. The third floor has 34 intensive care unit beds followed by 36 medical surgery beds on the fourth and fifth levels.

Concrete-over-metal decking floors average 20,000 sq ft in size, with the exception of the larger 14-ft-high ground level, which has a conference room; cafeteria and kitchen; and human resources, medical records, material management and education departments. Roughly 5,000 sq ft is being shelled out on the first floor for two future medical operation suites.

Building around an active hospital has meant careful coordination and planning between building and medical staffs.

“Staging room is limited, which means material deliveries had to be carefully planned,” says Matt Johnson, SR’s project manager. “All major utilities also had to be rerouted while maintaining continuous hospital service.”

The project suffered only one disruption, as planned, when it tapped into the electrical lines to install a breaker. The hospital expansion is a major undertaking that will see 250 construction workers onsite during the peak of activity. It will require 3,700 cu yds of concrete and 690 tons of steel to complete. The tower is expected to finish in December.

“We’ve grown to 90% average occupancy, and this project will give us some much needed beds and more space for shorter patient wait times and a more comfortable treatment environment,” Wise says.

Key Players

Owner/Developer: UHS Inc.
General contractor: SR Construction
Architect: HKS Inc.
Subcontractors: Mojave Electric Co. Inc.; Big Town Mechanical LLC

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