SAN DIEGO, Calif. — McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. has topped out structural steel construction for the new 71,000-square-foot Heart and Vascular Center at Sharp Grossmont Hospital, located in La Mesa, California.
This taxpayer-funded project, estimated at $60 million, is being performed by McCarthy as the general contractor on behalf of the Grossmont Healthcare District, with CEO Barry Jantz and the publicly elected GHD board members providing oversight. Sharp HealthCare is the operator of Sharp Grossmont through a 30-year lease that was executed with the district in 1991.
On June 20, officials with Sharp Grossmont, Grossmont Healthcare District and McCarthy held a joint topping out ceremony, during which a 220-foot crane hoisted the final steel beam, decorated with an American flag and evergreen tree, to the highest point of the building. McCarthy Project Director Jason Mrozek, McCarthy Senior Project Manager Todd Foos, Sharp Grossmont Chief Operating Officer Maryann Cone and Grossmont Healthcare District Vice President Bob Ayres gave brief comments as part of the official program.
Designed by KMD Architects, the Heart and Vascular Center will be a cast-in-place, concrete structure with spread footings and a structural steel moment frame, with one level below ground and two levels above. Construction of this facility will allow for expansion of the hospital’s existing surgery department and provide new multipurpose procedural rooms with the flexibility to support a wide range of specialties including general surgery, minimally invasive surgery, image-guided surgery and endovascular interventional procedures.
When completed in spring of 2015, the building will encompass four new hybrid operating rooms, four new catheterization labs, a pharmacy, clinical laboratory, materials management services area and loading dock. A covered walkway will connect to the existing Women’s Center on Level A. The new building will allow for the relocation of the hospital’s existing pharmacy and clinical laboratory space to meet current seismic criteria.
The new Heart and Vascular Center is being built on a tight site within a small footprint of the busy hospital campus, adjacent to the hospital’s existing operating rooms and cardiac catheterization labs. Its central location has presented access challenges for work crews, as well as material and equipment providers, according to Foos.
“Construction work there has required careful coordination and close management of the construction schedule to minimize any disruption to campus operations,” said Foos. “To date, the project has gone smoothly and we’ve experienced no time delays. More impressive is there has been zero lost time due to injuries. Every person working on the project has been able to return home safely to their families at the end of every work day.”
The project scope for McCarthy encompasses shoring, foundations, structure and build-out of Levels A and B. Level 1 will be provided as a shell space to accommodate the future build-out of a catheterization lab and operating rooms.
KPFF Consulting Engineers is the structural and civil engineer, Randall Lamb is the electrical and mechanical engineer and Wimmer Yamada and Caughey is the landscape architect.
McCarthy is also in the process of building the new $46-million central energy plant at Sharp Grossmont, also being financed by Prop. G. The three-story, 18,400-square-foot energy plant will include electrical switchgear, emergency generators, cooling towers, chillers, fuel tanks, medical gas tanks and various mechanical equipment that will help meet future capacity needs of the hospital. The plant also will include a control and locker room for facilities management personnel.
The energy plant will contain a new state-of-the-art co-generation combustion turbine generator. While not part of the bond-related construction, the co-generation equipment will complement the efficiency of the central energy plant and help save millions of dollars in energy costs, while reducing the hospital’s emission of greenhouse gas pollutants by 90 percent. Construction of the plant began last September, and is scheduled for completion in late 2015.
Renderings courtesy of KMD Architects.
