HOUSTON – January 17, 2023 – McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. celebrated the topping out of Houston Methodist’s new Cypress Hospital campus located in the greater Houston area. The Houston Methodist campus sits on 105 acres and consists of a seven-story hospital, two medical office buildings, and a central utility plant, with a mixture of built out space as well as a shell for future growth. McCarthy broke ground on the hospital in February 2022, and construction is scheduled to achieve substantial completion by the end of 2024.

To celebrate the construction milestone, those involved in the project and Houston Methodist executives gathered for a barbeque lunch and remarks by various speakers. All attendees signed a symbolic construction beam that was hoisted to the top of the structure along with the traditional evergreen tree. Speakers reflected on the work accomplished safely this far and looked ahead to the work needed to complete the campus.

McCarthy’s scope includes demolition of 11 existing buildings, totaling 600,000 square feet before constructing the new hospital with capacity for 276 licensed beds. The campus consists of a 569,100-square-foot, seven-story hospital building centered around a seven-story atrium. It also includes two medical office buildings that are six stories each. The first, totaling over 162,900 square feet, contains a cancer center with linear accelerator, a breast center, infusion and pharmacy areas, and a bridge connector to the new hospital tower. The second, totaling 160,200 square feet, includes an orthopedics and sports medicine center and clinics. McCarthy is also renovating an existing 29,000-square-foot central utility plant onsite.

“Reaching this milestone in such a quick timeframe is a testament to our team’s commitment to not only deliver a project on schedule, but to showcase our skills on such a complex project involving not just construction but demolition and renovation as well,” said Preston Hodges, Senior Vice President, Houston Business Unit Leader. “McCarthy has extensive healthcare construction experience, and we’re honored to continue our work with Houston Methodist on an important center of innovation coined the hospital of the future that will serve the Cypress community and the greater Houston area.”

All structures, including the hospital and both medical office buildings, are pan-deck concrete structures, with envelopes consisting of masonry and glazing similar to Houston Methodist’s other community hospital campuses. The hospital is designed as a “hospital of the future” and will incorporate the most advanced technology available from the day the doors open.

While the construction process uses standard materials, procurement lead times, supply chain issues, and inflation have presented challenges to the project. The cement shortage Texas faced through the summer months created schedule constraints and drove teams to ensure they were ready for pour dates. McCarthy worked closely with the design team to progress the design, focusing on certain elements of the project to support the fast-paced construction. Due to the speed to market, McCarthy recommended a fast-track multi-phase GMP approach, giving them the ability to procure certain components for each structure before the design was complete. This collaborative effort has also accelerated the BIM coordination to set the team up for success moving forward.

McCarthy serves as the project construction manager at risk with Page as the project architect. Walter P. Moore is the project structural and civil engineer, Smith Seckman Reid, Inc. handles mechanical, electrical, and plumbing, OJB is the landscape architect, and Vizient oversees medical equipment planning. With an extensive portfolio of multi-phase healthcare and research facility projects, McCarthy is ideally suited to take on healthcare and research projects of any size or complexity. Some of McCarthy’s other healthcare projects include Texas Children’s Hospital – Austin, Parkland Moody Center for Breast Health in Dallas, CHRISTUS Mother Frances Hospital – Tyler expansion, CHRISTUS Spohn in Corpus Christi, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Alkek Hospital Expansion and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center The Pavilion expansion.

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TYLER, Texas — The Christus Trinity Mother Frances Health System in Tyler broke ground April 3 on an expansion of the Christus Mother Frances Hospital. This expansion is a two-part project that includes a new parking garage and a tower that will house an Emergency Care Center, Intensive Care Units and multiple support services, with additional space for future growth.

The 186,452-square-foot tower will have a skywalk leading to the 297,300-square-foot, 850-space parking garage. The combined budget for the two-part project is approximately $92.1 million. This expansion is a coordinated effort between HDR Architects, SSR Engineering and McCarthy Contractors — all based out of Dallas — and Walter P. Moore out of Houston. Construction on the parking garage began in May, projected for completion in Jan. 2018. Construction on the tower is projected to begin after the completion of the parking garage in Feb. 2018, with construction completion scheduled for fall of 2019.

The overall goal of the hospital expansion is twofold, according to Kyle Rutherford, associate vice president for construction services at Christus Trinity Mother Frances Health System. Part one is the construction of the parking garage to alleviate current parking issues for the hospital, and part two is to improve the existing Emergency Care Center (ECC) and ICU capabilities of the hospital. “The ECC will have a linear design that will include all private rooms to improve patient privacy and positively impact infection control,” said Rutherford.

Additionally, the new ECC will bring leading-edge technology, improved patient flow, air flight and ground transportation accessibility to improve wait time and length of stay.

The plans for the expansion include 48 private treatment rooms in the ECC, with dedicated pediatric-friendly rooms and a surge capacity to 52 to allow up to 90,000 visits annually. “The existing ECC was constructed to receive approximately 45,000 visits each year, and we’ve averaged more than 80,000 visits annually for some time now, making us the busiest ECC in the area,” said Rutherford.

The new tower will have six levels, with a range of services in the basement, a state-of-the-art- emergency care center on level one, a 24-bed ICU on both levels three and four, with level five yet undesignated, open for future growth needs. The expansion’s final level includes a rooftop with two helipads that will bring the medical center’s “Flight For Life” program into a new area with direct ECC access, improving accessibility to ECC care.

“The expansion will provide covered parking for all visitors, as well as an ECC that will improve throughput and decrease wait times in a private and comfortable environment, especially for our pediatric patients and their families,” said Rutherford. The ICU design will allow the clinical staff to have bedside clinical documentation, continuous patient observation and a “hospitality room” feel, according to Rutherford. “Support services will be readily available, reducing the distance staff will need to travel, minimizing time away from patients,” said Rutherford. Additionally, interior enhancements of water features, indirect lighting and other planned aesthetic improvements for the hospital were chosen to reduce stress and create a calming and healing environment for patients.

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