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Extreme Makeover: Medical Center edition

Posted on | September 23, 2009 | 2,701 views |

By Jeff McCallister

At the end of the 2008-09 academic year when the majority of students and faculty and many staff left the main campus for summer vacation, plans were nearly set for the largest single construction project in Ohio State’s history.

ProjectONE, the title of the Medical Center expansion, had come through much of the planning and design stages and officials were ready to present to the Board of Trustees a bodacious design for a curved double-tower complex, covered in a gleaming skin of glass, that would be the new home of the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute, a new critical care facility and new outpatient facilities and research space with a spacious atrium connecting the towers.

But before it came up for the go-ahead vote, leaders decided to step back, take a hard look at the original design and use some extra time to see if it could be improved  — making sure, for example, that the project aligned with the university’s overall long-range facilities plan.

The result: A design that’s friendlier to both patients and the environment, a better fit architecturally with the existing buildings in the Medical Center and a project perfectly in line with the university’s master facility plan. What’s more, it resulted in cost savings of more than $50 million.

Trustees approved the design at their Sept. 18 meeting and commended the faculty and staff of the Medical Center for their work in bringing the project to this point.

When leaders pulled the plan back off the table in June, they decided to take it to the people for some suggestions on improvement. Gabbe, Senior Vice President for Planning Jeff Kaplan and Jay Kasey, chief operating officer of Ohio State’s health system and project manager for the expansion, held five public forums around the Medical Center and at Thompson Library. They were well-attended — about 500 in all — and helpful, according to Kasey.

“We came up with two revised designs, one for another double tower and one for a single tower,” Kasey said. “We had dedicated discussions with oncologists and critical-care specialists who will be working there and they found pros and cons with both designs, but when we asked people who attended the public meetings to vote, the preference came back at almost 80 percent for the single tower. That’s the main reason we went forward with that design, and then as we further examined it, it turned out we found some real operational advantages to a single tower as opposed to the double tower.”

Kasey said more development could be included in the project because the redesign found opportunities to reduce about $50 million in expenses.

It still comes with a $1 billion price tag, and is still the largest single project in the history of the university. The building has a footprint the size of Ohio Stadium, but with 17 floors, will be much taller with a large greenspace in front. The design also aims for LEED Silver certification.

The most noticeable change to the original design is the single-tower concept, which allows more efficient heating, cooling and lighting and gives every patient room (all of which will be private rooms) with a window to the outside of the building. While that means there still will be a large amount of glass covering the outside of the building, much has been replaced with metal for improved energy efficiency. It also allows for fewer, more centralized elevators.

The look, Gabbe said, will be striking.

“It will be a beacon of hope, visible from a distance,” Gabbe said. “This building will be for our sickest patients and so it must be uplifting both for those coming here for treatment and for the staff who will be providing their care.”

Officials also revised the parking plan and decided to keep the South Cannon Garage rather than replace it with a new relocated garage. Cramblet Hall now will be removed, however, to provide the green space in front of the new building.

The project also will include new lab and office space, upgrades to the electrical and plumbing systems in the Medical Center and completion of three floors of the biomedical-research tower. The plan also includes re-routing of Cannon Drive to reclaim about 12 acres of developable space along the river.

The building is scheduled to be completed by mid-2014.

Economic impact

First and foremost, ProjectONE is about improved healthcare.

Seven of the building’s 17 stories (276 beds) will become the new home of the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute, another five floors (144 beds) will become a new critical care hospital and the rest will be for outpatient care and research facilities. The hope is the expansion will push the Medical Center into the top 20 academic hospitals in the nation and put it among the top 10 in funding from the National Cancer Institute.

“It’s not about the rank itself, but what the rank reflects,” said Steven Gabbe, CEO of the Medical Center and senior vice president for health sciences. “Increasing numbers of patients come to us from all over the region and beyond for cancer treatment and critical care. This project creates the next-generation, personalized health care environment that will allow us to care for them.”

But the project also will have a significant economic impact on the university, the city and the entire state, according to Gabbe.

Projections estimate 5,000 construction jobs will be created over the next five years as the building takes shape, another 6,000 will be hired to permanently staff the new facility, and 4,000 more collateral jobs will be created in and around the Medical Center.

By the time it’s up and running, the project will increase the Medical Center’s revenues by 63 percent to $2.6 billion annually and increase the total economic impact of the Medical Center by 73 percent to $4.1 billion per year.

“This is a major milestone in the history of the university,” said Alan Brass, chairman of the Medical Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees. “You look across the country, not many of our colleagues would be able to take on anything like this.”

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