Flagship Mercyhealth Hospital Houses Only State-Designated Children’s Hospital in Northern Illinois

Mercyhealth’s Javon Bea Hospital and Physician Clinic–Riverside is a new $505-million regional tertiary specialty women and children’s hospital, adult hospital and multi-specialty clinic in Rockford, Illinois. It marked the end of the largest construction project in the city’s history. The new facility,  which houses the only state-designated children’s hospital in northern Illinois, and a regional perinatal center with 52-bed level III (highest level) neonatal intensive care unit, opened to patients in January.

Using Lean construction techniques such as 5S, prefabrication and innovative technology, Mortenson built the 563,000-square-foot hospital and physician clinic in 28 months. The AECOM-designed building, with a six-story, 194-bed adult and children’s hospital and four-story physician’s clinic, was built using structural steel, curtainwall, masonry and composite metal panels attached to a cold-formed metal framing system prefabricated to enhance quality and speed of installation.

Drones were used to assist in the planning and management of the complex site logistics and project sequencing. This allowed for efficient coordination and communication resulting in faster, more efficient installation. The project resources peaked at 550 craft workers onsite daily and more than 1,500 craft workers overall and reached more than 1.5 million man hours in total. In addition, the project team scanned the interior systems before installing drywall, and then stitched together exact layouts and locations with Google Earth overlays to support facility maintenance.

Day aerial photo / interior photo courtesy of Mortenson.

Early AM aerial photo courtesy of Mercyhealth.