Construction is underway on MLK ambulatory care center in L.A.

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