McCarthy Building Companies, Inc has had a healthy month with hospital construction. In March, the company completed the $456 million Prebys Cardiovascular Institute in La Jolla; and also won two Alliant Build America awards for its work on the St. Jude Medical Center Northwest Tower in Fullerton.

The St. Jude project received Alliant awards in the categories of Partnering Excellence and Design-Build Merit from the Associated General Contractors (AGC) of America. The company picked up their awards during the Alliant Build America Awards Luncheon on March 19, at AGC’s Annual Convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The $228 million (construction cost) healthcare facility was built by the project team of St. Jude Medical Center, Petra-ICS, McCarthy and Taylor Design. The project opened in November 2014 and was completed five months early and more than 10% under the original construction budget.

Located on the St. Jude Medical Center campus, the new tower replaces an existing tower. Construction highlights included the erection of a four-story, 200,000-sq-ft hospital connected to an existing tower; a 20,000-sq-ft central utility plant; a 215-car parking structure expansion and re-routing of major site utilities on an active medical campus.

Jim Bostic, V.P., Construction for Petra ICS said in a recent press release that they chose a design-build project delivery method "in an effort to lower the overall design and construction cost as well as to bring a heightened level of accountability to the design phase of the project. It is a known fact, that as an owner representative, our best opportunity to control the cost of a project is during the design phase.”

The project also overcame major design changes while under construction, such as an unanticipated build-out of 50,000 sq-ft of space that was originally planned as shell space, and a shift on the operating room floor to include new technology that had received funding.

The Alliant Build America Awards highlight the nation’s most significant construction projects and are considered by many to be the most prestigious recognition of construction accomplishments in the United States.

Another recent hospital project of note for McCarthy is the new 383,000-sq-ft Prebys Cardiovascular Institute on the Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla campus. This project, which completed early this month, was led by McCarthy as the design-assist general contractor retained by Scripps Health. HOK Architects was the project architect and Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. served as the construction manager.

Hospital officials believe the new cardiovascular facility will be a "destination hospital" for cardiac care on the West Coast.

The seven-story, steel-framed tower encompasses 10 levels, including a basement, intermediate mechanical level and rooftop mechanical level. The exterior of the signature, curved tower utilizes brick, window curtain wall and cream-colored metal panel systems.

The building accommodates 59 beds on two ICU levels, 108 beds on three medical surgical levels, six state-of-the-art cardiovascular and two hybrid operating rooms, and three cardiac catheterization labs. A corridor connects the basement and ground levels to the existing hospital.

The first floor encompasses the lobby and shell space for the future build-out of a new emergency department, which McCarthy is currently performing design-build services on with HOK. The second floor houses operating and pre-op rooms, the third and fourth floors accommodate ICU patient rooms and isolation rooms, and floors five through seven house surgery patient rooms. The lower floor houses sterilization rooms.

The new central energy plant is a cast-in-place concrete structure encompassing three levels, with two of the levels located below grade. It will provide air conditioning, heating, medical gas, steam, fuel storage, fresh-water holding, and emergency generators for the new cardiovascular facility and eventually the entire hospital campus.

“The building design incorporates numerous sustainable design principles and was developed with considerable input from physicians, nurses and clinical staff to ensure efficiencies that will foster exceptional care in a safe, comforting environment,” said McCarthy Project Director Steve Van Dyke in a recent press release.