The latest plans at Stamford Hospital, another institution established around the turn of the last century, is a $575-million, two-phase redevelopment. The plan includes construction of an 11-story patient tower to be built in two phases during the next 10 to 15 years.

Phase one will focus on the tower's first four stories and include an emergency department, a cardiology unit and surgical suites. Skanska will be the CM for this phase, which is valued at $225 million. Phase two will include the remaining seven floors of the tower. Groundbreaking is possible in early 2013, but a precise time line for completion has not yet been established, a hospital representative says.

Hartford Hospital, one of Connecticut's largest hospitals, is in the midst of a multi-phase plan to update its facilities by 2020. The first phase began last April and includes a $16-million, 40,000-sq-ft emergency department. FIP Construction, Farmington, is the CM. The project is slated for completion by year-end. The plan also includes a $100-million, 180,000-200,000 sq-ft-tower expansion and a $40-million, 440,000-sq-ft parking garage.

Despite all of the planned activity in this sector, the level of construction still does not match the level that Connecticut had in the past, Butts says. In 2008, for example, the value of the state's hospital and health-care construction sector was $318 million, which dropped to $100 million in 2009, and last year was flat, he says.

McGraw-Hill Construction Dodge's third-quarter 2011 data show that the sector will likely reach $162 million at year-end and rise only slightly to $176 million in 2012.

"I think we are in one of those cycles," Butts says. "There is slow growth, not a spike. But if there is any growth on the construction side of things, I think you are looking at it in the hospital and health-care sector."