About four years ago, executives at MaineGeneral Health, which has served the people of the Kennebec Valley since 1891, realized that they faced a classic decision: Should they renovate their two primary facilities, one in Augusta, the state capital, the other 20 or so miles north in Waterville, or start all over?
“Just to keep up those two facilities would have cost $100 million, and it would have been another patchwork renovation that could not give us the quality we needed,” recalled MaineGeneral President/CEO Chuck Hays. “To set us up for the future, a new site was the way to go.”
Having successfully built a new cancer center in 2007 under a collaborative project model, Hays, an engineer, and his team set out to build a new hospital at a central location in Augusta, using integrated project delivery. To implement their vision, they asked the Building Team of contractors Robins & Morton and H.P. Cummings Construction and design firms SMRT and TRO JB to enter into an IPD agreement that would guarantee fixed costs and completion imperatives, quality of patient care through evidence-based design (EBD), and operational efficiencies via sustainable design and Lean principles.
GOLD AWARD
Project SummaryAlfond Center for Health
Augusta, MaineBUILDING TEAM
Submitting firm: Robins & Morton (GC), joint venture with H.P. Cummings Construction
Owner: MaineGeneral Medical Center
Architect, interior architect, MEP engineer: SMRT and TRO JB
Structural engineer: SMRTGENERAL INFORMATION
Project size: 644,000 sf
Construction cost: $312,000,000
Construction period: August 2011 to August 2013
Delivery method: Integrated project delivery
It became immediately apparent that the chief stumbling block to the IPD agreement was the insurance. In the words of John Milbrand, PE, Construction Manager for MaineGeneral, “Insurance companies don’t know how to act when the parties agree not to blame each other.” After weeks of negotiation, MaineGeneral put together an owner-controlled insurance policy to cover worker’s compensation and other liabilities.
In early 2011, with the IPD firmly in place, the team began engaging 250 MaineGeneral staff, plus community members, patients, and patient advocates, in design discussions. They toured new hospitals across the country to gather ideas.
Before any work could get started, however, MaineGeneral’s financing was held up, and the Building Team faced the prospect of losing months of warm-weather construction time. Under a typical design-bid-build contract, no work would have been allowed to proceed; but with the IPD, the site work subcontractor was able to start moving dirt without waiting for change orders.
Then, in August 2011, just as crews were starting to roll, Hurricane Irene deluged the site, threatening the protected streams on the property with damage from runoff. The Building Team worked with the state Department of Environmental Protection to pump runoff from containment ponds into tanker trucks and transport it to a DEP-approved disposal area, thereby saving the streams from excess turbidity.
The Building Team’s entrepreneurial creativity, spurred by the IPD and inspired by a forward-thinking client, went well beyond the norm.
As a key component of evidence-based design, all 192 patient rooms are private to reduce hospital-induced infection. Each room has a family area with a sofa bed and a table that pops up for sharing meals, a patient lift, and a handrail between the bed and the bathroom to prevent falls. PHOTO: ANTON GRASSL/ESTO
For example, when the team put out RFPs for drywall/acoustical ceiling work, it became clear that the four local subcontractors would be bidding against each other on the biggest such job in the state. This put MaineGeneral’s management in an awkward position.
Instead of awarding the job to a single subcontractor, the hospital invited the four companies to operate under a single contract for the drywall work. This had never been done before, and it posed grave financial risk to the companies—not to mention to the hospital—but they made it work. In fact, of $172 million in subcontracts on the hospital, $167 million (97%) went to firms based in Maine, and 90% of the 3,000 jobs created by the project went to state residents.
To gain time and be as lean as possible, the Building Team set up an assembly line in an onsite basement, where they produced headwalls and bathrooms for the patient rooms. This shaved 25% off the delivery time for installing these components versus stick-built construction. Exterior wall panels were prefabbed and shipped in from a warehouse factory 60 miles from Augusta, in Portland, which allowed the building envelope to be closed in early, saving the owner thousands of dollars in temporary heating costs.
Construction of the Alfond Center for Health was completed in 24 months, nine months ahead of schedule, at a price below the validated target cost. Some of the savings went back into the project in the form of value-added improvements, including a 4,000-sf facilities building and a redundant data center.
Daylight floods the reception area at the 644,000-sf replacement hospital. It was originally programmed to attain LEED Silver certification, but the Building Team was able to earn it LEED Gold status. Environmental components include a 140,000-sf reflective roof, outdoor healing gardens, rainwater collection, and a heat-recovery system. The Building Team used mockups to test the functionality of patient rooms and exterior façades. PHOTO: ANTON GRASSL/ESTO
At 192 beds—all single-occupancy, a key element of EBD—the $312 million facility surpassed its planned LEED Silver certification to achieve LEED Gold. Sustainable elements include a heat-recovery system, rainwater collection and reuse, ice production to offset peak electrical use, LED lighting, a 140,000-sf white roof, and the use of natural gas instead of fuel oil for heating. Paul Stein, MaineGeneral’s COO, calculates that these initiatives will cut the hospital’s utility bills in half, to $3.27/sf, compared to $7.80/sf at the facilities it replaced.
Building Team Awards jurors appreciated the team’s attention to detail. “The patient rooms were well thought out,” said judge Terry Fielden, LEED AP BD+C, Director of K-12 Education at International Contractors, Inc. Prototype rooms were mocked up so that patients, their families, and hospital staff could make suggestions. Rooms were laid out with a handrail between the head of the bed and the nearby entrance to the bathroom. “You can see the evidence-based design in the patient rooms,” said judge Susan Heinking, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP O+M, VP and Sustainability Leader at VOA Associates.
Related Stories
Sponsored | | Dec 3, 2014
Modular Space Showcase: Bringing work-life balance to energy workers in the Bakken region
To meet the demands of the booming energy business, Williston needs to provide homes, recreation centers, restaurants, hotels, and other support facilities for the tidal wave of energy workers relocating to the Bakken Shale area. SPONSORED CONTENT
| Dec 3, 2014
U.S., Canada, and Mexico finalize agreement to recognize architect credentials
The agreement represents over a decade of negotiations, bringing cross-border recognition of professional credentials from concept to reality in the spirit of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
| Dec 3, 2014
35 cities added to Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities Challenge
Chicago, Dallas, and Pittsburgh are among the U.S. cities to join the 100 Resilient Cities Challenge, pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation.
| Dec 2, 2014
First existing multifamily buildings to earn Energy Star certification unveiled
River City in Chicago is one of 17 existing multifamily properties to earn Energy Star certification, which became available to this sector on Sept. 16 via a scoring system for multifamily properties that Energy Star and Fannie Mae had been developing for three years.
| Dec 2, 2014
Nashville planning retail district made from 21 shipping containers
OneC1TY, a healthcare- and technology-focused community under construction on 18.7 acres near Nashville, Tenn., will include a mini retail district made from 21 shipping containers, the first time in this market containers have been repurposed for such use.
| Dec 2, 2014
Main attractions: New list tallies up the Top 10 museums completed this year
The list includes both additions to existing structures and entirely new buildings, from Frank Gehry's Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris to Shigeru Ban's Aspen (Colo.) Art Museum.
| Dec 2, 2014
Nonresidential construction spending rebounds in October
This month's increase in nonresidential construction spending is far more consistent with the anecdotal information floating around the industry, says ABC's Chief Economist Anirban Basu.
| Dec 2, 2014
Hoffmann Architects announces promotions
The architecture and engineering firm specializing in the rehabilitation of building exteriors announces the promotion of members of its Connecticut staff.
| Dec 2, 2014
SPARK designs urban farming housing for Singapore’s elderly population
The proposal blends affordable retirement housing with urban farming by integrating vertical aquaponic farming and rooftop soil planting into multi-unit housing for seniors.
| Dec 2, 2014
Bjarke Ingels unveils cave-like plan for public square in Battersea Power Station
A Malaysian development consortium is guiding the project, which is meant to mimic the caves of Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak, East Malaysia.