With costs skyrocketing during the COVID-19 pandemic, B&K’s design-assist partnership with WSP and Brasfield & Gorrie on this project was critical. Using prefabrication, working with the General Contractor to maintain defined work areas, and maintaining stringent QA/QC processes, we absorbed additional costs without passing them on to the client. B&K completed the mechanical scope for 27 operating rooms, a sterile processing department, a pharmacy, two labs, 14 imaging rooms, and various supporting spaces 6 months ahead of schedule.
Assembling the correct partners to build a hospital of this magnitude is incredibly important to the success of a project, and that is exactly what Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta did for this project. For the replacement hospital, we were tasked with bringing the mechanical systems to life, working alongside engineer WSP and Brasfield & Gorrie as General Contractor.
The modeling effort gave us a step-by-step plan to provide a complete system that serves 27 operating rooms, a sterile processing department, a pharmacy, two labs, 14 imaging rooms, a broadcast studio, support for autonomous guided vehicles, a kitchen, and various supporting spaces.
The planned expansion of CHOA’s hospital system was born out of necessity – one that was only amplified by the unexpected crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. The entire globe was faced with the pressure of something we hadn’t faced in nearly a century – overcoming a new illness without understanding the symptoms, side effects, and economic consequences. Jim Corbin, B&K’s Director of Healthcare & Laboratories, had reasons of his own for the urgency of this project.
“During the project, my son Caleb was born with a rare medical condition that required surgery on his first day of life,” said Jim. “The nurses, specialists, doctors, and surgeons knew exactly what to do and successfully completed surgery on that day and a second surgery four months later.”
B&K incurred substantial cost increases from all suppliers and vendors due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We were able to absorb this cost without passing it on to the owner by utilizing prefabrication, working with the General Contractor to maintain defined work areas, and maintaining stringent QA/QC processes.
Despite the pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic, Batchelor & Kimball was able to turnover intermediate milestones early. The project conditioned air dates were pulled in 4 weeks by implementing a plan with the General Contractor to install all carbon steel mains (30” down to 2.5”) serving AHUs before priority trades. This allowed us to use permanent AHUs instead of temporary AHUs, saving money for the owner.
Not only did this save cost, but it allowed the GC to start on casework and other activities requiring a controlled environment. Our planned completion date for the D&T portion of the scope during preconstruction was May 2024, however we were able to better that date by 6 months during our design assist partnership with WSP and Brasfield & Gorrie.
The result: Nine stories, 450,000 square feet and — most important — rooms to provide care to 233 more people.
Conditioned air dates were pulled in 4 weeks by implementing a plan that allowed us to use permanent AHUs, saving money for the owner
The project was completed by smoke compartments (~20,000 SF areas) to maintain life safety boundaries and implementation of temporary conditioned air. The project was modeled based on the construction boundaries so each space could be planned in 1-to-2-week increments, allowing just-in-time deliveries with minimal material on site for installation.
Prefabrication is the key to success for every B&K project. Since the complete mechanical system was modeled, we were able to install over 16,500 cast in place anchors to support our piping and ductwork, provide premanufactured coil connections to all units, build steam pressure relief valve assemblies for all mechanical rooms, and design pump skids for process CHW. To maintain the schedule defined by B&G, our pre-fabrication plan was split into 35 different zones with multiple packages per zone.
“Caleb is doing great,” says Jim, “he’s 2 years old now, and loves going back to see the doctors at CHOA Advanced Paediatrics for scheduled follow up appointments. The entire community is grateful for an amazing healthcare provider like Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and I’m grateful for the opportunity to help build a facility that has given our family so much. They offer lifesaving surgery capabilities every day, provide advanced post-surgical programs, and tremendous everyday care for our kids.”
Prefabrication is the key to success for every B&K project.