TUCSON, Ariz. — Sundt Construction Inc. and partner DPR Construction have been selected to construct a new, 11-story tower that will replace the 40-year-old portion of the hospital at Banner – University Medical Center Tucson in Arizona.
Pending zoning approvals, Sundt I DPR, a joint venture, will begin preparing the site and utilities late this year, with construction starting in early 2016. The facility is expected to open in 2019.
Banner’s $400-million construction project at Banner – University Medical Center Tucson represents a much-needed enhancement to one of the nation’s top academic medical centers and Southern Arizona’s only Level 1 Trauma Center. The 689,000-square-foot patient tower will be configured and sized for current and future healthcare technology, with 336 private patient rooms, 22 new operating rooms, imaging suites and public spaces. Architects for the new tower are Shepley Bullfinch and GLHN Architects and Engineers Inc.
The tower will open with 240 private rooms along with shelled space on the top two floors to accommodate 96 beds in the future, depending on community need. This will raise the total bed count from 479 to 489 licensed beds in 2019, because beds in the original hospital building will close at that time.
In addition to constructing the new patient tower, Sundt I DPR will renovate two floors and the lobby of Diamond Children’s—now called Banner Children’s-Diamond Children’s Medical Center—as well as remodel the original hospital building, which opened in 1971 as “University Hospital,” for non-patient care uses such as administrative functions.
Preliminary rendering courtesy of Shepley Bulfinch.
