Virginia Commonwealth University’s VCU Health broke ground June 22 on the largest capital construction project in its history, a $349.2 million outpatient facility on the university’s Richmond campus that, upon completion in the summer of 2020, will consolidate most of the VCU Massey Cancer Center’s outpatient services within 16 stories and 603,000 sf.
This space is intended to become a hub for comprehensive outpatient healthcare. It will include on-site lab services, medical imaging, women’s services, and rehabilitation services for physical, occupational, and speech therapies. VCU Health’s outpatient orthopedics, pulmonary and urology, will also relocate to the new building, which will feature a dedicated tower for ambulatory oncology care. VCU Massey Cancer Center will have its own entrance, lobby, elevators, clinics, radiation and infusion treatment areas, patient resource spaces, and valet and self-parking areas.
The outpatient facility—which will be on the site once occupied by the Virginia Treatment Center for Children—will include a 472,000-sf parking deck for more than 1,000 vehicles. (The Treatment Center for Children will relocate to the Children’s Hospital at VCU’s Brook Road campus.)
“The oncology tower will be the new hub for most of our cancer services downtown,” says Gordon Ginder, M.D., director of VCU Massey Cancer Center. “Our goal is to create a welcoming, healing environment with easier access, improved patient flow and soothing aesthetics.”
Sandy Tkacz, AIA, ACHA, EDAC, health principal with HDR, the project’s designer, notes that the ambulatory tower “will not only allow patients to have all of these services integrated in the same location for easy navigation, but also change the Richmond skyline and the face of the city.”
The groundbreaking ceremony for VCU Health's new outpatient facility included (from left) George Emerson, a member of VCU Health System Authority Board of Directors; Gordon Ginder, M.D., director of VCU Massey Cancer Center; Marsha Rappley, M.D., CEO of VCU Health System Authority and vice president of health sciences at VCU; Michael Rao, Ph.D, president of Virginia Commonwealth University and VCU Health System; Deborah Davis, CEO of VCU Hospitals and Clinics and vice president for clincal affairs at VCU; Peter Buckley, M.D., dean of the VCU School of Medicine and executive vice president for medical affairs at VCU Health; Harry R. Thalhimer, MCV Foundation chairman of the board; and Larry Little, vice president of support services and planning, VCU Health System. Image; VCU
HDR and Hourigan Construction are design-build partners on the project’s Building Team that also includes Ventana, which will design, manufacture, and install the building’s exterior wall systems, whose skin will consist of punched openings, flat curtainwall, saw-toothed curtainwall, and glass guardrails.
VCU is definitely in expansion mode right now. In May, the university, in joint venture with Sheltering Arms Hospital, began construction on a 200,000-sf, $119 million Rehab Institute within 25 acres of the West Creek Medical Park that will have 114 beds when it opens in 2020. (Hourigan Construction and HDR are working together on this project, too.) Earlier this month, the university broke ground on a $93 million 133,000-sf Engineering Research Building, whose design will emphasize collaboration. (Richmond-based architecture firms Baskervill and Smith McClane Architects, and Boston-based firm Goody Clancy, designed this facility. Washington, D.C.-based Page/SST Planners designed the lab spaces.)
Related Stories
| Feb 11, 2011
Sustainable features on the bill for dual-building performing arts center at Soka University of America
The $73 million Soka University of America’s new performing arts center and academic complex recently opened on the school’s Aliso Viejo, Calif., campus. McCarthy Building Companies and Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects collaborated on the two-building project. One is a three-story, 47,836-sf facility with a grand reception lobby, a 1,200-seat auditorium, and supports spaces. The other is a four-story, 48,974-sf facility with 11 classrooms, 29 faculty offices, a 150-seat black box theater, rehearsal/dance studio, and support spaces. The project, which has a green roof, solar panels, operable windows, and sun-shading devices, is going for LEED Silver.
| Feb 11, 2011
Research facility separates but also connects lab spaces
California State University, Northridge, consolidated its graduate and undergraduate biology and mathematics programs into one 90,000-sf research facility. Architect of record Cannon Design worked on the new Chaparral Hall, creating a four-story facility with two distinct spaces that separate research and teaching areas; these are linked by faculty offices to create collaborative spaces. The building houses wet research, teaching, and computational research labs, a 5,000-sf vivarium, classrooms, and administrative offices. A four-story outdoor lobby and plaza and an outdoor staircase provide orientation. A covered walkway links the new facility with the existing science complex. Saiful/Bouquet served as structural engineer, Bard, Rao + Athanas Consulting Engineers served as MEP, and Research Facilities Design was laboratory consultant.
| Feb 11, 2011
A feast of dining options at University of Colorado community center, but hold the buffalo stew
The University of Colorado, Boulder, cooked up something different with its new $84.4 million Center for Community building, whose 900-seat foodservice area consists of 12 micro-restaurants, each with its own food options and décor. Centerbrook Architects of Connecticut collaborated with Denver’s Davis Partnership Architects and foodservice designer Baker Group of Grand Rapids, Mich., on the 323,000-sf facility, which also includes space for a career center, international education, and counseling and psychological services. Exterior walls of rough-hewn, variegated sandstone and a terra cotta roof help the new facility blend with existing campus buildings. Target: LEED Gold.
| Feb 11, 2011
Chicago high-rise mixes condos with classrooms for Art Institute students
The Legacy at Millennium Park is a 72-story, mixed-use complex that rises high above Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. The glass tower, designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, is mostly residential, but also includes 41,000 sf of classroom space for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and another 7,400 sf of retail space. The building’s 355 one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom condominiums range from 875 sf to 9,300 sf, and there are seven levels of parking. Sky patios on the 15th, 42nd, and 60th floors give owners outdoor access and views of Lake Michigan.
| Feb 11, 2011
Apartment complex caters to University of Minnesota students
Twin Cities firm Elness Swenson Graham Architects designed the new Stadium Village Flats, in the University of Minnesota’s East Bank Campus, with students in mind. The $30 million, six-story residential/retail complex will include 120 furnished apartments with fitness rooms and lounges on each floor. More than 5,000 sf of first-floor retail space and two levels of below-ground parking will complete the complex. Opus AE Group Inc., based in Minneapolis, will provide structural engineering services.
| Feb 11, 2011
Four-story library at Salem State will hold half a million—get this—books!
Salem State University in Massachusetts broke ground on a new library and learning center in December. The new four-story library will include instructional labs, group study rooms, and a testing center. The modern, 124,000-sf design by Boston-based Shepley Bulfinch includes space for 500,000 books and study space for up to a thousand students. Sustainable features include geothermal heating and cooling, rainwater harvesting, and low-flow plumbing fixtures.
| Jan 21, 2011
Primate research facility at Duke improves life for lemurs
Dozens of lemurs have new homes in two new facilities at the Duke Lemur Center in Raleigh, N.C. The Releasable Building connects to a 69-acre fenced forest for free-ranging lemurs, while the Semi-Releasable Building is for lemurs with limited-range privileges.
| Jan 21, 2011
Nothing dinky about these residences for Golden Gophers
The Sydney Hall Student Apartments combines 125 student residences with 15,000 sf of retail space in the University of Minnesota’s historic Dinkytown neighborhood, in Minneapolis.
| Jan 21, 2011
Virginia community college completes LEED Silver science building
The new 60,000-sf science building at John Tyler Community College in Midlothian, Va., just earned LEED Silver, the first facility in the Commonwealth’s community college system to earn this recognition. The facility, designed by Burt Hill with Gilbane Building Co. as construction manager, houses an entire floor of laboratory classrooms, plus a new library, student lounge, and bookstore.
| Jan 20, 2011
Community college to prepare next-gen Homeland Security personnel
The College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Ill., began work on the Homeland Security Education Center, which will prepare future emergency personnel to tackle terrorist attacks and disasters. The $25 million, 61,100-sf building’s centerpiece will be an immersive interior street lab for urban response simulations.