U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Alternate Care Facility
Florrisant, Mo.
Award of Merit

Owner: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Lead Design Firm/Engineer: Ross & Baruzzini (Architect and Engineer for Design-Build Team)
General Contractor (design-build): Tarlton Corp.
Mechanical Contractor (design-build): Rock Hill Mechanical Corp.
Electrical Contractor (design-build): Guarantee Electrical Co.

Tarlton Corp. turned a closed Quality Inn Hotel into an alternate care facility for non-acute COVID-19 patients as part of the region’s pandemic readiness plan, following the guidelines of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Within 79 hours of contract award, the four-story, 57,625-sq-ft hotel was repurposed to provide 100 beds serving as potential backup for St. Louis-area hospitals. An April 8 design charrette created a three-page scope of work that involved working in 12-hour shifts, with USACE technicians, 100 members of the design-build team and tradespeople from 10 subcontractors. They cleaned, cleared, repurposed, repaired and replaced fixtures, furniture and mechanical and electrical systems. Guarantee Electrical and Rock Hill Mechanical used their prefabrication facilities to quickly turn around modifications to the hotel that included temporary power and lighting, alterations to in-room phone systems and coordinating power and mechanical system modifications to ensure patient rooms had the necessary air handling capacity to provide negative air pressure.

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