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Michigan Hospital Project Wins Approval

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The Chelsea Planning Commission has unanimously approved Chelsea Community Hospital’s $60 million, 110,000-square-foot expansion project.

Funds for the construction are being made available through the hospital’s 2009 merger with Saint Joseph Mercy Health System.

The preliminary site plan includes a new two-story building with 48 new private patient rooms and six intensive-care-unit rooms. It is the largest construction project in the hospital’s history.

The expansion will also include a new emergency department with 20 treatment rooms, in-patient physical therapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy areas, cardiac rehabilitation space and in-patient and out-patient radiology. A new conference space, meeting rooms, a small retail and café area and a new pharmacy will also be built. Private patient rooms will now be on the second floor and the current courtyard and fountain will remain.

The current one-story hospital is licensed for 113 beds and that number won’t change after the expansion.

Several buildings will be demolished, including the outpatient behavioral health clinic, which will move to the Clocktower complex in Chelsea. It is expected to open in mid-March.

The new building is slated for completion by September 2012. Renovations for the current hospital building will commence once the new building is finished and will last 18 months.

Final plans for the renovated space are still in the design phase but are expected to include a comprehensive cancer center. The center will complement the infusion suite that opened in the professional building last fall.

A groundbreaking ceremony is slated for March.

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Work Under Way on Detroit Children’s Hospital

DETROIT — A groundbreaking ceremony was held for the Children’s Hospital of Michigan Pediatric Specialty Center in Detroit.

The new $43 million center is to be the first of $850 million in investment from Nashville based Vanguard Health Systems which will improve or expand some of Detroit Medical Center’s aging facilities.

Other projects will include a $170-million Children’s Hospital Tower. The new five-story facility will be built across the street from the current Children’s Hospital and will consolidate outpatient services, offering both primary and preventive care. Its construction marks the first expansion at the DMC’s main campus in decades.

Mike Duggan, DMC President and CEO says that Vanguard’s commitment to buy DMC enabled the ground breaking to “stay on track and on schedule.”

DMC recently delayed the closing of its $1.5 billion sale to Vanguard until the end of the year. If approved, the sale will be the single largest private investment in Detroit history. It currently awaits approval by Michigan’s Attorney General.

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UOM Projects Could Open Early

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Officials at the University of Michigan announced that the replacement C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and replacement Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital are expected to open one year ahead of schedule, in fall 2011.

When completed, the $754 million, 1.1 million square-foot hospital complex will include a nine-story tower for clinical care and a 12-story tower devoted to inpatient care, diagnostics and procedural and treatment services.

The new 348-bed facility, which is located adjacent to the school’s University Hospital, will house private pediatric and women’s birthing patient rooms and a dedicated pediatric emergency room and urgent care center. All beds will be in single, private-room settings.

To date, the UM Health System has raised $69 million, which includes a $25 million gift from the Flint-based C.S. Mott Foundation and a $15 million donation from the Ted and Jane Von Voigtlander Foundation.

The new children’s hospital will have a helipad atop its 12-story tower and more than 30 exam rooms as part of a new emergency service. Pediatric inpatient rooms are 300 square feet, with computer and wireless accessibility. The hospital will house 20 pediatric operating and procedure rooms, up from 11 in the current C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, which will remain open after the replacement facility is completed.

An entire floor of the new children’s hospital will be dedicated to pediatric cancer care. The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for critically ill newborns will expand from 40 beds in the current hospital to 46 beds. All beds in the NICU will be private and include living space for parents or caregivers staying with their child.

The Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital will house 31 obstetric and gynecology exam and procedure rooms. The birth center will have 50 single-room maternity care beds.

The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and the Pediatric Cardio-Thoracic Unit will share a floor that includes a Ronald McDonald House within the hospital for short-term lodging of patient families. The area will include 12 private bedrooms with beds, showers and desks, along with shared living rooms.

Inpatient, diagnostic, procedural and clinic services oat f the Michigan Congenital Heart Center will be all located on one floor within the new facility.

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Main Street America

History is often the element that ties people in rural communities together, but if that history also applies to an active healthcare facility, the community could have a problem on its hands.

Until the recent opening of a replacement hospital, Bell Memorial Hospital in Ishpeming, Mich., held the distinction of being the oldest hospital in the state. The 90-year-old facility was crumbling as it continued to serve patients from the former mining communities at the midpoint of Michigan’s isolated upper peninsula.

“During my interview to be the CEO, they had to move the interview because the pipes were leaking in the room that I was in and water was running down the walls,” says Rick Ament, who was named CEO of the hospital in 2007.

The facility was in such disrepair staff was forced to take extra steps to control indoor environments, in addition to other inefficiencies that forced extra work.

“We were seeing patients, but we did not have air-conditioning in a number of key patient areas, and we had problems with ventilation and pests,” Ament says. “We had an open pit under the building with a water fault, and we had to keep the doors on that end of the building closed because of the constant humidity from water that was draining in the basement.”

Now, Ament and the rest of the Bell Memorial staff find themselves in entirely different surroundings following the September opening of a new $35 million facility that features several design improvements.

Community Ties

The critical-care facility, designed by Hobbs + Black Architects of Ann Harbor, Mich., houses a surgery center with 25 inpatient beds and an adjacent medical office building.

Officials at the facility were sensitive to the hospital’s public image early in the planning process, says Charlie Huber, a planner with the firm.

“We started talking with them about the buildings in their area,” Huber says. “They were very concerned that they would alienate the community by creating something that they felt was not a good use of money.”

Several steps were taken to ensure that the interior and exterior of the facility were not out of place in the rural environment. Rustic architectural nods to the mining community and winter lodges that served the winter sports enthusiasts were included to provide a visual connection for patients and visitors.

“They wanted to make sure the building looked new and impressive to the public, but also fit in,” Huber says.

Layered rock with iron striations was applied to the front entrance and awning posts, but for practical and budgetary reasons, most of the rest of the exterior was left untouched.

“Other than the front door area, we wanted to keep the building really simple and durable for weather,” Huber says. “We used the block on the exterior to create a layer pattern that recalls the mining community and the layers of the earth.”

The winter months in Ishpeming are cold, with the average temperature in the single digits. Snow usually does not melt until spring, forcing planners to be mindful of exterior components that could create potential barriers with snow and ice accumulation.

Planners also had to consider snowdrift patterns during the design phase, and ambulance bays were slightly modified to accommodate snowplows that allow the vehicles to travel in inclement weather.

The interior of the hospital offers a warm contrast to the often freezing outside temperatures with what hospital officials call “rustic elegance” interior décor that is complete with a large, functional fireplace.

The medical office building was planned with a main-street corridor and theme that includes storefront facades for different clinical and retail areas, rod-iron fencing and lampposts, and carpeting that was designed to look like a cobblestone road.

Critical Changes

The interior design enhancements were a hit with the community and staff, but they came at a price. The aesthetic improvements were added after plans were completed, forcing value engineering in other areas and a scramble for the architects.

“We put about $3 million worth of upgrades into the project, but we got it in on budget, which meant that we had to pull $3 million of value engineering out of the project to meet that difference,” he says.

Last-minute changes were also introduced for operating rooms while the project was under construction.

“They were reinventing themselves and they were doing it on a limited budget, so we designed the hospital so any department could be expanded and flex out in any direction,” says John Barker, executive vice president of Hobbs + Black. “We were really tested on that because halfway through construction, the hospital acquired a prominent vascular surgeon and a prominent orthopedist, which tripled their surgery business.”

Ament says the changes likely drove the architects crazy, but in the long run they led to better work and patient environment, which fit with the hospital’s service-excellence goals.

“The plans were already out, but we wanted these changes to be made,” he says. “We knew it would help us enhance our vision, and it absolutely has.”

PROJECT DATA

Facility Name: Bell Memorial Hospital
Number of patient rooms: 25 inpatient beds
Building Area: 144,545 square feet
Land Area: 35 acres
Construction Cost: $35 million
Chief Administrator: Rick Ament, CEO
Architect: Hobbs+Black Associates Inc.
Construction Manager: Oscar J. Boldt Construction
Project Manager: Oscar J. Boldt Construction
Courtesy of: Hobbs+Black Associates Inc.

PRODUCT DATA

Cafeteria & Kitchen:
Cabinet Steamers: Cleveland
Custom Stainless Equipment: Great Lakes Stainless
Food Service: Great Lakes Hotel Supply Co.
Ovens: Vulcan
Refrigeration: Victory
Steam Kettles: Groen, Cleveland
Ventilators: Vent Tech
Walk-In Coolers/Freezers: Chrysler and Koppin
Shelving: Metro
Dishwashers: Hobart
Icemakers: Manitowoc
Slicers: Hobart

Carpet and Flooring:
Carpet: Shaw
Ceramic Tile: Crossville
Sheet Vinyl: Mannington
Vinyl Composition Tile: Armstrong

Construction Materials:
Acoustical Ceilings: Armstrong
Brick/Masonry: Bark River Masonry
Cabinets: Jamestown Metal Products
(metal casework)
Door Hardware: Ingersoll-Rand Co.
(closers), Schlage, Hager, Von Duprin
Metal doors: Steelcraft
Wood doors: Egger
Glass/Glazing: Wausau Windows,
Oldcastle Glass, Kawneer
Insulation: Owens
Laminate millwork: Nevamar
Solid Surfacing Millwork: Cambria
Paint: Sherwin Williams
Partitions: Holcomb & Hoke Mfg, Hufcor
Plumbing: Zurn, Chcago, Sloan, Kohler
Roofing: Grace
Skylights: Dura-Lite
Vinyl Wall Covering: Maharam Chambray
Sectional doors: Raynor
Electric Fireplace: Dimplex
Dock Leveler & MRI Seal: Serco

HVAC/Controls:
HVAC Control Devices: Johnson Controls System
HVAC Units: Air Flow
Chiller: York

Lighting:
Indoor Lighting: Legion, Atlantic
Emergency Lighting: TCP Inc.

Handrails: Pawling Corp.
Intercom/Paging/Call Systems: GE
Locks: Ingersoll Rand
Maintenance Garage: Varco-Pruden Buildings

Equipment/Supplies:
Drinking Fountains: Halsey Taylor
Showers/Shower Equipment: Zurn, Chicago, Sloan, Kohler
Computers: Dell
Lockers: Lyon

Courtesy of: Hobbs+Black Associates Inc.

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