HDR Chosen to Design German Military Medical Center

WEILERBACH, Germany — After a nearly three-year selection process, the Landesbetrieb Liegenschafts- und Baubetreuung Weilerbach (LBB), the real estate and construction services office for the state of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany, selected HDR|TMK’s Dusseldorf, Germany office and HDR’s Washington, D.C., office to complete the design and delivery of the new Rhine Ordinance Barracks Medical Center Replacement (ROBMCR) project adjacent to the Ramstein U.S. Air Force Base in Weilerbach. The team will work with the LBB, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and with the U.S. Defense Health Agency to deliver the new military hospital.

A groundbreaking ceremony was already held in October 2014 to mark the beginning of construction on the new medical center, designed to serve U.S. and NATO Allied Forces operating in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and to care for wounded service men and women coming from wars in the Middle East, Europe, Africa and the Southwest Asia region. It will replace the U.S. Army’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and the Ramstein Air Base Clinic. HOK, with offices in Washington, D.C., completed architectural engineering services for the first 20 percent of the design, while HDR will provide these services for the final 80 percent.

“This important location in Germany is, and has been, a strategic lifesaving place for the United States. The last 13-plus years of conflict have validated and proven the vital need for world-class military medical care in this region of the world,” said Lt. Gen. Donald Campbell Jr. at the 2014 groundbreaking ceremony.

The $990 million ROBMCR will include nine operating rooms, 68 beds and 120 examination rooms, and will include a surge capacity that will allow it to rapidly expand to 93 beds. Work is scheduled to begin immediately and continue over a planned eight-year design and construction delivery period. The project will be produced completely using Building Information Management (BIM) and will comply with U.S. and German building codes. The center is scheduled to open in 2022.

The ROBMCR works with Walter Reed Medical Center in the Washington, D.C., area, which HDR is also designing. These two medical centers make up the most politically sensitive assets in the U.S. Department of Defense’s medical facility portfolio.

“We are honored that our team has been selected for this important project, which will complete the continuum of care between Landstuhl, Germany and Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. — also being designed to world-class standards,” said Gus Ardura, U.S. military director, HDR, and Johannes Kresimon, German managing director, HDR|TMK, in a statement. “We look forward to working closely with the military medical leadership in both countries over the next eight years to bring forward the most advanced facilities in the U.S. Department of Defense portfolio.”