ROCHESTER, N.Y.—Architect of record SLAM (The S/L/A/M Collaborative), along with project partner and design architect Perkins&Will, have unveiled plans for the new University of Rochester Orthopaedics & Physical Performance Center. Phase one of the outpatient campus will be located in a former Sears retail space at the Marketplace Mall in Henrietta, N.Y. Once complete, it will be one of the largest outpatient orthopaedics facilities in the Northeast.

The new facility reflects a convergence between the surge in e-commerce resulting in available retail spaces and a growing demand for more robust healthcare infrastructure across the country.

“As healthcare facilities across the U.S. look to decentralize their services, the adaptive reuse of underutilized retail space represents a huge opportunity for institutions, like the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), to expand their outpatient reach by moving to the mall.” says Scott Hansche, AIA, principal-in-charge at SLAM, who serves as Architect of Record for the project.

The full $227 million, 350,000-square-foot facility includes a 210,000-square-foot renovated space and a 140,000-square-foot new outpatient clinical services building that will house 140 exam rooms for orthopaedic care.

Designed to be patient-oriented, the team brought daylight into the existing Sears footprint through a series of skylights and an internal courtyard that also functions as a rehabilitation space. Overall, the design of the building’s sinuous facade represents the idea of movement, emblematic of the orthopaedic care provided within its walls.

The new facility reflects a current urgency to find design solutions that expand infrastructure into underserved regions, helping to address the country’s healthcare equity gaps. One of the goals for the design team was to foster a feeling of familiarity and accessibility.

“Repurposing a traditional community anchor, such as a mall, helps upend perceptions of healthcare facilities as centralized urban complexes,” says Robert Goodwin, FAIA, design director of Perkins&Will’s New York studio. “We are integrating healthcare into the existing fabric of the community rather than asking patients to travel to a facility that might be hard to reach.”

The focus on accessibility was amplified through a series of decentralized entry points and the addition of a dedicated bus stop outside of the outpatient facility along the mall’s usual route.

“While the facility is in a distinctly suburban location, it was crucial that we make its services accessible to everyone within the community, including those without access to a car,” adds Goodwin. “At the same time, because we are locating this facility at a mall, we knew there would be ample parking on site and that the community would know how to get here.”

Breathing a second life into an expansive yet under-utilized retail complex also yields both economic and environmental benefits, allowing the design team to repurpose existing infrastructure and resources, while reducing costs and construction times.

The renovated portion of the project is 200,000-square feet of a surgical platform with three operating rooms, a three-room procedure suite, advanced imaging, clinical research, education, administration, physical therapy, and a human performance and injury prevention center.

The addition of URMC’s outpatient facility is intended to have a mutually beneficial relationship with the remaining retail environment by providing additional foot traffic through the mall. A major entryway will connect and integrate the healthcare space to the rest of the campus, creating a mutually supportive relationship.

“We saw an opportunity to build a center that’s not only right-sized for patient volumes, but also expands on treatment options and convenience for patients,” says Paul T. Rubery, MD, Chair of the Department of Orthopaedics at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

“This project answers an urgent, unmet need for patients: faster access to surgery and provider appointments, a convenient location, and a campus and treatment space designed precisely for patients with painful orthopaedic conditions and mobility challenges. This campus employs design strategies to make navigating the space as easy and comfortable as possible,” adds Rubery.

The multiphase project will be complete by 2023. The first phase, relocating the orthopaedic administrative offices to an adjacent renovated lease space, was complete and occupied in the fall of 2021. The second phase, the conversion of the former Sears store to an outpatient surgical center, will be complete by fall 2022. This will be followed by a rehab and sports performance center next spring, and a four-story, 144-bed clinic space in the fall of 2023.

Quick facts:

Architect of Record: SLAM (The S/L/A/M Collaborative)
Design Architect: Perkins&Will’s New York studio
Local Construction Administration Architect: Dwyer Architectural
Location: Rochester, New York
Status: In Construction
Completion Date: 2023
Size:  350,000-square feet

Editor’s Note: A report from SLAM (The S/L/A/M Collaborative) contributed strongly to this article.

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ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) has partnered with Schneider Electric, an international company headquartered in France, to deploy “Asset Performance Services” (APS) on its medical school in Rochester. APS is intended to help the facilities management team to manage the performance of and offer insights to the status of the facility’s electrical distribution equipment. The positive results and success from APS are the first step in what is now a long-term goal for URMC to apply this monitoring system to more of its campus facilities.

URMC sees 140,000 inpatients each year, and one million outpatients annually. The facilities management team is responsible for managing 5 million square feet of footprint across the medical center’s campus, and has over 26,000 pieces of medical equipment to keep up with. Additionally, the facility has shifted to an entirely electronic data filing system and electronic medical records system over the years. All of these factors combined add up to a high power demand for the facility.

All of this and more led URMC seek the development of a completely digital and intelligent campus. “Even though emergency power generators are in place, the core electrical systems have to be reliable,” said Mark Schwartz, director of facility operations at URMC. “When power goes out at this institution, even though we have emergency backup, it still makes people very nervous. It impacts surgeries and other cases that we may have going on,” said Schwartz. The first step to mitigating this issue for the medical center was the implementation of this monitoring system through Schneider Electric in April 2015.

The architecture-based campus-wide monitoring solution applied by Schneider to URMC is called an “EcoStruxure Asset Advisor.” This solution works by connecting and monitoring the medical center’s electrical distribution assets via the Cloud. Event notifications keep facility staff up to date regarding electrical distribution system performance. When abnormalities in the system occur, recommendations are made to the staff with the proper steps to take in order to avoid and prevent system failures. This innovative digital approach overall monitors the heartbeat of the institution, cuts down on maintenance costs, improves power system reliability and relieves overburdened staff.

Since deployment of the EcoStruxture in 2015, this solution has produced a 20 to one return on investment for the medical center, according to Schwartz. Schneider’s EcoStruxture enables the facilities team to be able to anticipate potential problems and better manage the monitoring of the high volume of equipment, which was previously impossible to keep up with. “In two incidences alone, we saved hundreds of thousands of dollars through early discovery of the problems,” said Schwartz.

With the current success of the initial pilot program of the APS system on URMC as a baseline foundation, plans are currently underway to establish a facility-wide energy management and power quality system, starting with the Golisano Children’s Hospital. Pending budget approval by University of Rochester management, the EcoStruxure Asset Advisor monitoring system is slated for installation at the Golisano Children’s Hospital before the end of 2017.

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