Saint Joseph Hospital in Downtown Denver is Complete

DENVER, Colo. – The move to Saint Joseph Hospital’s new building at 19th Avenue and Lafayette Street, just two blocks west of its former location, is complete.

Being the first new hospital to open in Denver in more than a decade, the new hospital continues a tradition of care that is more than 141 years old, yet offers some of the most advanced medical treatments and patient-care amenities in Colorado. It was designed to be a model for 21st century hospitals, with patient-centered care a primary focus of the new design.

Fact Sheet

• Planning for the new hospital started in 2010.
• The total project cost was $623 million.
• The new hospital is 831,321 square feet, roughly equivalent to the size of seven football fields (compared to 1.1 million square feet in the old hospital).
• 365 private patient rooms.
• The campus includes 3.5 acres of parks and garden areas with 587 trees.
• 65 percent of construction materials were recycled or diverted from landfills.
• The new hospital is 41 percent more energy efficient than the prior hospital.
• The south-facing main entrance and patient rooms are configured to take advantage of Colorado’s 300+ days of sunshine and maximize natural light.
• Every floor has direct access to fresh air and outdoor space.
• The new hospital will feature more than 100 new works of art by 80 Colorado artists and galleries, in addition to more than 250 pieces of employee and medical staff artwork. Saint Joseph Hospital’s art collection celebrates life, the Colorado spirit and a rich tradition of care dating back to 1873.
• The new ER has 42 total beds, five fast-track beds for urgent care and 12 dedicated senior ER rooms.

According to a study by University of Colorado Boulder engineers, using prefabricated elements in the construction of the new hospital cut 72 workdays off the construction schedule and resulted in $4.3 million in savings. The study, by Matthew Morris and doctoral student Eric Antillon, both of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, is one of the first to try and quantify the full costs and benefits of using prefabricated elements in a large-scale construction project.

Mortenson was the project contractor, ZGF, H & L Architecture and Davis Partnership served as the architects.

Photos courtesy of Ellen Jaskol Photography.