Touted as the “hospital of the future,” the St. Anthony North Health Campus was featured on the cover of Colorado Construction & Design magazine’s spring 2014 edition. An addition to the existing campus, the project’s mission is to bring total health solutions to communities in northern Colorado and to deliver optimal health care value.

Run by Centura Health, the entire building will measure 342,000 sf when complete and will house various health care spaces and functions. According to Ronald Doolittle, construction manager at GE Johnson, “The goal and challenge presented on the St. Anthony North Health Campus project was to deliver a cost-effective, integrated health campus in a very expedited timeframe.”

This was accomplished by delivering an integrated design effort via the design-assist delivery method and heavy use of BIM. GE Johnson engaged U.S. Engineering as the mechanical contractor early-on to expedite the construction process during design.  U.S. Engineering also worked closely with Cator, Ruma & Associates to help with the design and maintain Centura Health’s budget. This allowed for the large equipment to get secured early and enabled U.S. Engineering to meet the aggressive construction timeline. Additionally, U.S. Engineering and Sturgeon Electric prefabricated various building elements including precast concrete core panels, patient room headwalls, and the majority of the equipment in the central utility plant on prefabricated skids.

To further complicate the challenging timeline, weather-related schedule setbacks occurred as well. By working together as a cohesive group, the design and construction team members were able to resequence the project and mitigate the rain damage.  U.S. Engineering worked with GE Johnson to allow the second through fourth floors to be completed while rework was being done on the underground utilities. This allowed for the first floor to be phased as the rework was completed and reduced the overall impact of the construction schedule.

By implementing these proactive design and construction team approaches, the St. Anthony North Health Campus is on-track to open in spring 2015.

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