Pedestrian Bridge Could Delay Parkland Memorial Hospital Opening

DALLAS — A proposed 870-foot-long sky bridge could delay the opening of a $1.3 billion hospital project slated to open next year.

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.