New Chicago Hospitals

Health=Sustainability for Trio of Projects

by Paula Widholm

Construction of three new hospitals is under way in the Chicago area. One will open in 2009 in northwest suburban Elgin and the other two in Chicago in 2012.

In addition to the objective of improving the quality of health care, each project has set high goals for sustainability.

Children’s Hospital

Deep foundation and preliminary excavation work began in May for the $1 billion Ann & Robert Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago in the Streeterville neighborhood of downtown Chicago.

The 288-bed, 23-story, 1.25-million-sq-ft pediatric acute care, academic teaching and research medical facility will replace the current Children’s at Lincoln and Fullerton avenues in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. The new facility is scheduled to be complete by January 2012, with occupancy six months later.

A design team of more than 20 LEED-accredited professionals is focusing on the owner’s goal of obtaining LEED silver certification.

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Green objectives include planting and maintaining a 13,039-sq-ft roof garden; reducing water pollution through stormwater management; integrating a light-colored exterior to help minimize the impact of heat on the surrounding area; using highly efficient plumbing fixtures; reducing energy consumption through a specially designed ventilation system; and promoting indoor air quality by using 100% low-emission adhesives, sealants, paints, coating and carpets.

Going green in the construction process will focus on reducing soil loss, salvaging and recycling 50% of all demolition and nonhazardous construction materials and using recycled content that represents 10% of all building materials.

Greg Werner, vice president and general manager for M.A. Mortenson Construction Co. of Chicago, which is serving as construction manager in a joint venture with Power Construction Co. of Chicago, says building green represents just one of the project’s goals. Another major one is keeping the project’s budget on track.

“The project takes place in four years, and there’s a lot of unpredictability in the costs of materials,” Werner says.

Some strategies to combat market uncertainties include prepurchasing materials and jockeying elements of the project such as getting the glass curtain wall fabricated far in advance. To help in the planning, building information modeling will be used extensively.

Another issue common to downtown construction is the curb-line-to-curb-line site.
“There’s no laydown area for storing of materials,” Werner adds. “They’re basically hoisted off the truck and put in place. These are logistical challenges we’ll face from now to the end of the project.”

Rush Medical Center

On Chicago’s West Side, Rush University Medical Center will break ground in September on a $585 million hospital. The 376-bed, 14-story, 806,000-sq-ft east tower will seek LEED certification when it is complete in January 2012.

As part of the $907 million Rush campus transformation, construction is also under way on a $70 million, 220,000-sq-ft orthopedic ambulatory/medical office building; $89 million worth of infrastructure work; a 510-car parking garage; and a 32,500-sq-ft central power plant, all slated to be complete in December 2009.

Several other facilities on campus will be renovated between 2013 and 2015, and demolition will occur in 2015 on buildings more than a century old.

Sustainable features of the campus design include multiple green roofs for slow release of rainwater into city storm sewers, use of air-conditioner condensation to water gardens and recycling condensate water from the cooling coils. The overall payback for these strategies will save 1.3 million gallons of water each year.

Inside, the hospital will use passive solar light to brighten waiting rooms, energy-efficient lighting fixtures and systems for heating and cooling, as well as recycled building products.

However, “the most interesting part of the design of the hospital is in its form,” says Jim Zajac, principal of Chicago-based Perkins+Will, the architect.

The hospital will have a butterfly shape that expands outward at higher stories from a smaller rectangular base.

Arranging the nursing units in a butterfly shape creates more of a “neighborhood for patients,” Zajac adds. “Rather than being a sterile environment, we’re making the caregiver, the patient and the family more of a together environment to encourage the healing process.”

Rush has established guiding principals linked to evidence-based and sustainable design.

“They’re trying to give patients and families a much higher-quality experience,” Zajac says.

With evidence-based design, plans can be fine-tuned, says Michelle Halle Stern, national research manager for health-care sustainability with Perkins+Will.

“For example, the original large glass curtain wall over time has evolved into a punched opening,” she says. “There’s less flash in the building, but there’s heat gain coming into the room.”

Also, by using sustainable building methods, the project is getting permits faster than usual through Chicago’s permitting process that gives higher priority to green projects.

“It’s being designated as a green campus,” Halle Stern says. “That sets us apart with the city as an organization going the extra mile.”

Sherman Hospital

Construction of the $310 million, 650,000-sq-ft Sherman Hospital at Big Timber and Randall roads in Elgin began in 2006 and is slated for completion by November 2009.

The hospital, which replaces one that is 4 mi away, will boast 255 beds, all in private rooms, in a six-story inpatient tower. A $20 million, 104,000-sq-ft medical office building at the campus will break ground in September and will be completed next year as well.

Most unique is the project’s 15-acre manmade lake, which was completed in August, for use with geothermal technology, which could save the new hospital campus up to $1 million in energy costs annually. The $4.5 million geothermal technology is a first for an Illinois hospital and one of the largest in the world.

This past summer, workers submerged about 150 mi of plastic pipe at the bottom of the 18-ft-deep lake where temperatures stay between 40 to 80 degrees. A mixture of water and methanol circulates through the loop and carries the heat to the hospital. In the summer, the loops draw excess heat from the building and allow it to be absorbed by the lake water.

“Working in the water is not something you do on a regular basis,” says Selena Worster, project manager for Mechanical Inc., the Freeport-based geothermal contractor.

Over the summer, the firm installed 8-ft-wide by 34-ft long heat exchangers into the lake while they were hooked up to their supply and return piping.

“There’s a specific location where they need to be in the lake,” Worster says. “They have to be 10 ft apart north-south and 50 ft apart east-west. They’re floating until you put water into them.”

Over a six-week period, a crew of 13 people placed 171 heat exchangers in the lake. Installing the pipes while the lake was dry was not an option because it has a clay liner, and the equipment could have torn the liner. Because of the experience, many members of the local Union 501 plumbers and pipe fitters took classes on the geothermal process, Worster says.

All stormwater runoff also drains into the lake, but the biggest environmental benefit of the geothermal lake is using the free cooling of the earth/lake water for the hospital’s heat exchange.

“The lake also serves an aesthetic purpose,” Worster says. “Patient rooms face the lake, and there’s a path around it where people can walk.”

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