The completion of the new 2.5 million-square-foot Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas could be pushed back because construction officials are still waiting on a building permit for a pedestrian bridge that’s crucial to help ease the movement of patients and equipment into the new structure next May, as reported by the Dallas Morning News.

The hold-up stems from the question of who owns Harry Hines Boulevard, where the bridge will be anchored. The city of Dallas manages the street, but the land underneath belongs to Dallas County and the state of Texas. The two entities still need time to review and approve the hospital’s plan.

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price has already objected to the costly design of the $13 million pedestrian bridge, which was never included in the original budget. When a hospital committee opted last week for a pedestrian bridge with a distinctive arch design, the arch tacked on almost $6 million extra to the cost of building the bridge. Construction costs overall are already about $16 million over budget.

When it’s completed, the Parkland campus will be twice the size of the current hospital that was originally built in 1954. It will provide 862 single-patient rooms with private bathrooms. The project is set to be the largest public hospital in the nation to be built in one phase. Facility planning began in 2008, and the official groundbreaking was in November 2010.

As of June, construction was 90 percent complete and on track to open by next May. Workers have begun moving in furniture and medical equipment, and a high-speed elevator was installed that takes patients from the two helipads at the top of the 17-story hospital to the emergency department to the ground floor.

Parkland is working with Dallas-based designers HDR+Corgan, and Dallas-based construction manager BARA, a joint venture team that includes Balfour Beatty Construction, Austin Commercial, H.J. Russell & Company and Azteca Enterprises.

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Construction on the new hospital began in 2010 and is scheduled for completion and activation in 2015. Dallas-based BARA is serving as the construction manager. In a joint effort, Omaha, Neb.-headquartered HDR Inc. and Dallas-headquartered Corgan Associates are working as the master architect.

Known as the largest hospital construction project in the nation, the 2.5 million-square-foot facility costs $1.27 billion. It includes an 862-bed adult inpatient hospital, a 380,000-square-foot outpatient center, 6,000-vehicle parking lot and central utility plant and logistics building.

The new facility will provide a patient-centered environment, with 38 percent more bed space than the current facility. It is being designed to promote a more healing environment by incorporating natural light and windows and will include the latest technologies.

The design will also be adaptable so that the campus can evolve with the health care industry over the next 50 years.

KLMK will assist the hospital in the development and implementation of the Move Activation plan, which includes patient relocation, staff move coordination, management of content relocation activities and budget and schedule development. The company will also assist with the tracking of the training plan, IT planning, occupancy strategy development and provide information to facilitate timely decision making.

The construction team is on schedule and on budget, despite significant leadership changes. In December, the central utility plant began utility service to the new hospital campus. Earlier this month, the construction team completed the topping out of the Women’s and Infant’s Specialty Health (WISH) clinic, which will occupy about 100,000 square feet when completed.

Over the course of the project, an estimated 3,000 jobs will be created.
 

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