2025 West Best Projects
Award of Merit, Residential/Hospitality: Orange County Health Care Agency Marine Way Campus
Orange County Health Care Agency Marine Way Campus
Calif.
Award of Merit
Submitted by PCL Construction
Owner Orange County Public Works
Lead Design Firm Gensler
General Contractor PCL Construction
Civil Engineer Fuscoe Engineering
Structural Engineer KPFF Consulting Engineers
MEP Engineer WSP
Landscape Architect Landlab
Acoustics/Low Voltage Waveguide
An adaptive reuse project gave new life to a former military site in Irvine, consolidating a four-building campus into one. This 68,400-sq-ft building brings together multiple mission-critical public health divisions—emergency medical services, a public health laboratory and community and nursing services—into a secure, 24/7 hub for emergency response, pandemic preparedness and public health leadership.
Tasked with delivering a technically complex facility in just 24 months and within a fixed $78.24-million budget, the project team relied on prefabrication, BIM coordination and drone verification to help ensure speed and precision. The Marine Way campus is the county’s largest-ever fast-tracked design-build project.
Despite the timeline, complex site logistics and critical infrastructure installation across more than 180,000 work hours, the team logged no lost-time or recordable incidents. This was made possible with proactive planning, all-team accountability and a series of safety programs tailored to the project’s high-risk conditions.
One of these was a mandatory “safety share” program that required every subcontractor to present a task-specific job hazard analysis before mobilization. The team also developed a custom safety video that was shown during orientations and served as a visual commitment to jobsite safety.
During high-risk summer concrete placements, efforts to keep field teams safe included schedule adjustments, hydration stations and shaded rest areas.
