The 160,000-sf, three-story VA Ambulatory Care Center opened in Omaha, Neb., on August 3. This is the first of five pilot projects authorized to be built under the Communities Helping Invest through Property and Improvements Needed for Veterans Act, otherwise known as CHIP IN, which became law in 2016 and allows the cash-strapped U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to use private investments to fund construction and real estate purchases.
The Omaha facility’s $86 million price tag was defrayed by $30 million in private contributions funneled through the nonprofit Heritage Services, the project’s construction manager, which donated its services and the building to the VA. This funding mechanism created efficiencies that shortened construction time and aligned design specifications with those used in private healthcare projects.
Also see: Outpatient clinics bring the VA closer to injured veterans
The new center has the capacity to provide healthcare services to about 400 patients per day.
LEO A DALY provided the architectural, engineering, and interior design services on this project, for which McCarthy Building Companies was the GC. The Ambulatory Care Center has eight primary care clinics, including one for women vets (a first in VA’s healthcare network), and a care clinic that’s shared by orthopedics, cardiology, and other specialty medical practices.
A WALL DESIGNED TO RESEMBLE A WAVING FLAG
Alternating colors along the building's western facade symbolize the colored bars earned by miltary servicemen and women.
All clinics employ Patient Aligned Care Team (PACT) programming to enhance patient privacy and navigation. By centralizing clinical staff and resources, the PACT model also promotes collaboration. A new outpatient surgery center occupies the third floor, along with radiology. On the first level, a new connector building provides direct indoor access to the existing hospital and its services.
Sophisticated structural and architectural coordination created the folded glass form of the building’s “flag wall.” Against the western façade, alternating colors symbolize the “colored bars” earned by military servicemen and women for acts of gallantry and heroism. Both walls use transparent glazing to stream abundant daylighting into the interior spaces.
Also see: Veterans’ mental health needs are central to Seattle’s VA design
A sense of refuge, comfort, and reflection are reinforced by amenities that include an outdoor healing garden and commissioned artwork (some of it created by veteran-artists) installed in the facility’s public spaces.
The new Ambulatory Care Center replaces a crumbling hospital built in the 1940s and had long been on the VA’s list of replacement priorities.
Related Stories
| Mar 11, 2011
Mixed-income retirement community in Maryland based on holistic care
The Green House Residences at Stadium Place in Waverly, Md., is a five-story, 40,600-sf, mixed-income retirement community based on a holistic continuum of care concept developed by Dr. Bill Thomas. Each of the four residential floors houses a self-contained home for 12 residents that includes 12 bedrooms/baths organized around a common living/social area called the “hearth,” which includes a kitchen, living room with fireplace, and dining area.
| Mar 3, 2011
HDR acquires healthcare design-build firm Cooper Medical
HDR, a global architecture, engineering and consulting firm, acquired Cooper Medical, a firm providing integrated design and construction services for healthcare facilities throughout the U.S. The new alliance, HDR Cooper Medical, will provide a full service design and construction delivery model to healthcare clients.
| Mar 1, 2011
New survey shows shifts in hospital construction projects
America’s hospitals and health systems are focusing more on renovation or expansion than new construction, according to a new survey conducted by Health Facilities Management magazine and the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE). In fact, renovation or expansion accounted for 73% of construction projects at hospitals responding to the survey.
| Feb 22, 2011
HDR Architecture names four healthcare directors
Four senior professionals in HDR Architecture’s healthcare program have been named Healthcare directors.
| Feb 17, 2011
HDR Architecture sponsors national effort to green operating rooms
HDR Architecture, Inc. has joined the group of corporate sponsors of Practice Greenhealth’s Greening the Operating Room Initiative. This sweeping and prescriptive path to green the nation’s operating rooms was launched earlier this year to reduce the environmental footprint of the operating suites in hospitals across the country, which can produce between 20 and 30% of a hospital’s total waste.
| Feb 11, 2011
Iowa surgery center addresses both inpatient and outpatient care
The 12,000-person community of Carroll, Iowa, has a new $28 million surgery center to provide both inpatient and outpatient care. Minneapolis-based healthcare design firm Horty Elving headed up the four-story, 120,000-sf project for St. Anthony’s Regional Hospital. The center’s layout is based on a circular process flow, and includes four 800-sf operating rooms with poured rubber floors to reduce leg fatigue for surgeons and support staff, two substerile rooms between each pair of operating rooms, and two endoscopy rooms adjacent to the outpatient prep and recovery rooms. Recovery rooms are clustered in groups of four. The large family lounge (left) has expansive windows with views of the countryside, and television monitors that display coded information on patient status so loved ones can follow a patient’s progress.
| Feb 11, 2011
Two projects seek to reinvigorate Los Angeles County medical center
HMC Architects designed two new buildings for the Los Angeles County Martin Luther King, Jr., Medical Center as part of a $360 million plan to reinvigorate the campus. The buildings include a 120-bed hospital, which involves renovation of an existing tower and several support buildings, and the construction of a new multi-service ambulatory care center. The new facilities will have large expanses of glass at all waiting and public areas for unobstructed views of downtown Los Angeles. A curved glass entrance canopy will unite the two buildings. When both projects are completed—the hospital in 2012 and the ambulatory care center in 2013—the campus will have added more than 460,000 sf of space. The hospital will seek LEED certification, while the ambulatory care center is targeting LEED Silver.
| Feb 9, 2011
Hospital Construction in the Age of Obamacare
The recession has hurt even the usually vibrant healthcare segment. Nearly three out of four hospital systems have put the brakes on capital projects. We asked five capital expenditure insiders for their advice on how Building Teams can still succeed in this highly competitive sector.
| Jan 31, 2011
Cuningham Group Architecture launches Healthcare studio with Lee Brennan
International design firm Cuningham Group Architecture, P.A. (Cuningham Group) has announced the arrival of Lee Brennan, AIA, as Principal and Leader of its new Healthcare studio. Brennan comes to Cuningham Group with over 30 years of professional experience, 22 of those years in healthcare, encompassing all aspects of project delivery, from strategic planning and programming through design and construction. The firm’s new Healthcare studio will enhance Cuningham Group’s expertise in leisure and entertainment, education, mixed-use/housing and workplace environments.