2025 West Best Projects
Project of the Year Finalist, Excellence in Sustainability and Best Project, Health Care: UCSF Health Peninsula Outpatient Center
UCSF Health Peninsula Outpatient Center
Calif.
PROJECT OF THE YEAR FINALIST, EXCELLENCE IN SUSTAINABILITY and BEST PROJECT, HEALTH CARE
Submitted by: Swinerton Builders
Owner: UCSF Health
Lead Design Firm: Ratcliff
General Contractor: Swinerton Builders
Civil Engineer: BKF Engineers
Structural Engineer: ZFA Structural Engineers
MEP Engineer: Guttmann & Blaevoet
Electrical Contractor: Morrow Meadows
Mechanical/Plumbing Contractor: Pan Pacific Mechanical
In downtown Burlingame, Calif., Swinerton Builders transformed a speculative office shell into a high-density, all-electric outpatient center for UCSF Health—one that compresses 100,000 sq ft of advanced clinical programming into a 50,000-sq-ft footprint. Completed in January 2025, five weeks ahead of schedule and on budget, the $61.2-million project reflected the contractor’s ability to coordinate complex building systems and deliver hospital-grade performance within restrictive urban parameters.
The four-story facility features a surgery center with four operating rooms and 12 recovery bays as well as full diagnostic imaging capabilities, including MRI, CT, PET-CT and mammography. Additionally, it includes an infusion center with 18 treatment stations, a compounding pharmacy and an integrated laboratory. Swinerton’s scope encompassed the full interior build-out and rooftop central utility plant, including installation of all mechanical and electrical equipment, chillers and both diesel and natural-gas generators for back-up power.
Photo courtesy Swinerton Builders
“From the outset, this project demanded an exceptional level of collaboration and precision,” says Sal Naber, project executive at Swinerton. “We were building a hospital-quality facility inside a commercial shell on a dense downtown site with strict sustainability and noise constraints. Every decision had to balance clinical function, constructibility and UCSF’s carbon goals.”
With just 12-ft-8-in. floor-to-floor heights and 12-in. concrete slabs, the team engineered what it called a “Swiss watch” of above-ceiling mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems.
Traditional gravity plumbing was replaced with a vacuum drainage system, allowing horizontal piping to fit within limited ceiling plenums while conserving potable water. Custom air-handling units used 100% outside air with energy recovery, and the building’s HVAC design eliminated conventional exhaust systems to reduce competition for ceiling space. When a delay in permanent power activation by the local utility threatened to disrupt commissioning, Swinerton mobilized a 15% larger workforce to accelerate progress.
Photo courtesy Swinerton Builders
Material and equipment deliveries were tightly choreographed through building information modeling (BIM) coordination and regular multitrade planning meetings. Real-time site documentation using OpenSpace linked progress photos to the model, allowing field crews and facility managers to visualize in-wall and overhead system routing before installation. The as-built BIM model was later integrated into UCSF’s IBM Maximo asset-management platform through VueOps, streamlining long-term maintenance.
The all-electric mechanical system represented a milestone in UCSF Health’s decarbonization initiative. A heat-recovery chiller simultaneously produced chilled and hot water, replacing conventional boilers and cooling towers.
The building’s existing 3-in. gas line, once planned for boilers, was repurposed to power a 1-MW generator, ensuring continuous operation of medical systems during outages. These systems contributed to LEED Gold certification.
