Baptist Health is one step closer to providing even greater access to comprehensive cancer care as the final steel beams were placed for the new Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center in Jacksonville, Florida.
Local officials, Baptist Health team members and MD Anderson Cancer Center leaders joined the project team partners to celebrate the topping out ceremony for the new nine-story cancer center, expected to be completed in late spring of 2018. The final two beams, signed by patients, family members, visitors, team members and physicians, were ceremoniously raised to the top of the iconic building.
Baptist Health with MD Anderson chose DPR Construction in partnership with Perry-McCall Construction to build their new, 330,000-square-foot freestanding cancer treatment facility, as well as a 250,000-square-foot parking deck for a total of 580,000 square feet of new construction, which will transform oncology care delivery throughout the Southeast.
More than 1,200 workers from 45 different subcontractors have been involved in the complex and highly collaborative project.
In addition to the highly collaborative process, the complexity of the project required the use of the latest technologies and building techniques. To be able to start the vertical construction of the treatment center, the team needed to stabilize the ground. This was done using a soil stabilization technique that required drilling 22-foot holes in the ground every 10 feet and filling them with concrete. More than 2,000 rigid inclusions were installed to support the 580,000 square feet of new construction.
To keep the project moving on a fast-track, the project partners used advanced 3-D modeling technology to completely design the project.
The new cancer center is being built on San Marco Boulevard across from the existing Baptist MD Anderson, which opened in October 2015. Once complete, the more than $150-million center will dramatically expand cancer care and provide hope for adult patients in the region and will be triple the size of the current Baptist MD Anderson Cancer.
The project was designed by Freeman White and HKS Architects.
Photo source: www.dpr.com.
Renderings courtesy of HKS.
