Client: St. Mary’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center
Completion Date: January 2010 (addition); December 2010 (renovation)
Program: An expansion and renovation of St. Mary's Hospital anchored by a new 12-story, 200,350-square-foot patient bed tower with a cafeteria next door. Adjoining an existing two-level emergency and surgery building, the tower expands both departments to the south and, on the floors above, adds 128 patient rooms and units for perinatal care, intensive care and orthopedics. Floors 9 through 12 are shelled floors, with an additional 128 patient rooms planned. Perkins+Will also added a new level for staff and physician education to a neighboring four-story building, which is connected to the tower via a stack of short glass bridges.
Design Concept and Solution: The architects wanted the new tower to complement the existing hospital—as well as Grand Junction's rocky landscape—while establishing a more advanced, forward-looking image. To avoid competing with the surrounding mesas and cliffs, the Perkins+Will team chose a simple rectangular silhouette for the tower. They selected brick and glass for the lower floors of the project—the base of the tower and an adjoining one-story wing housing the cafeteria—to echo the scale and the brick exterior of the existing hospital. Once the tower clears the height of the original building, the cladding transitions to aluminum panel and glass for a more weightless, contemporary look. With patient rooms set on the long sides of the rectangle, the tower is oriented to maximize views to nearby landmarks (the Grand Mesa and the national forest to the south, the Book Cliffs to the north), while the facade's green glass recalls the local sagebrush. With sustainable features that include aluminum cladding made largely from recycled content, a weather-controlled irrigation system, and meters that monitor energy consumption, the project is on track for LEED Silver certification.
Total construction cost: $192 million
Gross square footage: 440,000 sq.ft. (new), 70,000 sq.ft. (renovation)
Architect:
Perkins+Will
84 10th Street South, Suite 200
Minneapolis, MN 55403
Tel: 612-851-5000
Fax: 612-851-5001
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