The design-build team of McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. and HDR Architecture, Inc. have begun construction of the new $150 million Martin Luther King, Jr. Multi-Service Ambulatory Care Center in Los Angeles. The new 132,550-sf facility was designed to meet LEED Gold standards.
The four-story medical facility, which broke ground in January 25 will house five operating rooms, dentistry, oncology, and physical and occupational therapy services.
Additionally, the project will include 10 acres of site parking and landscape, offsite signalization and street improvements as well as a 31,000-square-foot LEED Silver-rated renovation to existing administration space.
To meet the environmentally tough standards of LEED Gold, the MLK, Jr. Multi-Service Ambulatory Care Center will pursue a variety of LEED credits. These include use of products with recycled content, locally manufactured products, 95% construction waste stream recycling, elimination of light pollution, water use reduction, and an elaborate rain water recycling program.
The project will be built with a conventional foundation on concrete piers, and a structural steel moment-frame with concrete-filled metal deck. The public-facing façade will be glass curtain-wall with stone accents at bottom level. “Back-of -house” facades will be plaster with punched window openings.
At the project peak, approximately 250 construction workers will be involved in construction, and many will be members of the local community.
In addition, McCarthy has joined forces with the National Association for Equal Justice in America (NAEJA) and Centennial High School in Compton to provide a student intern and construction project management training program for high school students interested in a career in construction. This program is intended to provide an educational experience for the students, as well as to aid the shrinking construction industry workforce by exposing a new generation to the field of construction. Projections show that the construction industry is expected to have a shortage of skilled workers as the baby boomer generation (1946-1964) retires over the next five years. In addition, many construction industry professionals and trades-people left the industry during the economic downturn which further exacerbates the worker shortage. The Construction Labor Research Council estimates that each year during this decade (2010 – 2020), the construction industry will need approximately 95,000 replacement workers and another 90,000 new workers.
Currently scheduled for an early completion in July 2013, the Multi-Service Ambulatory Care Center project is now completing the deep foundation work. By summer, Wiggins says the project will be about 30 percent complete, with the structural steel work completed, the foundation and superstructure finished, and the shell beginning to take shape.
This is the second project McCarthy has completed at the medical center. The first was the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Public Health budgeted at $20 million, which opened in October 2011. This design/build project, located on the north end of the MLK, Jr. campus, replaced the existing South Health Center, and included construction of a two-level, 31,000-square-foot medical office building and an adjacent 76-car parking lot.
Other project team members involved in the current Martin Luther King, Jr. Multi-Service Ambulatory Care Center project include: HDR Architecture, Inc. – architect and interior designer; KPFF - structural engineer; Psomas - civil engineer; SASCO - electrical design-builder; TMAD – mechanical and plumbing peer reviewer; Lynn Capouya - landscape architect; ACCO - Mechanical design-builder; Murray Company - plumbing design-builder and Sharpe Interiors/Eagle Summit - drywall/light-gauge framing subcontractor. BD+C
Related Stories
| Mar 14, 2012
Hyatt joins Thornton Tomasetti as VP in Chicago
A forensic specialist, Hyatt has more than 10 years of experience performing investigations of structural failures throughout the U.S.
| Mar 14, 2012
Tsoi/Kobus and Centerbrook to design Jackson Laboratory facility in Farmington, Conn.
Building will house research into personalized, gene-based cancer screening and treatment.
| Mar 13, 2012
China's high-speed building boom
A 30-story hotel in Changsha went up in two weeks. Some question the safety in that, but the builder defends its methods.
| Mar 13, 2012
Commercial glazer Harmon expanding into Texas
Company expanding into the Texas market with a new office in Dallas and a satellite facility in Austin.
| Mar 13, 2012
Worker office space to drop below 100-sf in five years
The average for all companies for square feet per worker in 2017 will be 151 sf, compared to 176 sf, and 225 sf in 2010.
| Mar 12, 2012
Improving the performance of existing commercial buildings: the chemistry of sustainable construction
Retrofitting our existing commercial buildings is one of the key steps to overcoming the economic and environmental challenges we face.
| Mar 9, 2012
2012 Giants 300 survey due Friday, April 13
See how your firm ranks among the AEC industry leaders.
| Mar 7, 2012
Firestone iPad app offers touch technology
Free app provides a preview of Firestone’s Roots to Rooftop Building Envelope Solution with an overview of all the products from ground and stormwater management solutions, to complete wall panel and commercial roofing system applications.
