Virginia Commonwealth University’s VCU Health broke ground June 22 on the largest capital construction project in its history, a $349.2 million outpatient facility on the university’s Richmond campus that, upon completion in the summer of 2020, will consolidate most of the VCU Massey Cancer Center’s outpatient services within 16 stories and 603,000 sf.
This space is intended to become a hub for comprehensive outpatient healthcare. It will include on-site lab services, medical imaging, women’s services, and rehabilitation services for physical, occupational, and speech therapies. VCU Health’s outpatient orthopedics, pulmonary and urology, will also relocate to the new building, which will feature a dedicated tower for ambulatory oncology care. VCU Massey Cancer Center will have its own entrance, lobby, elevators, clinics, radiation and infusion treatment areas, patient resource spaces, and valet and self-parking areas.
The outpatient facility—which will be on the site once occupied by the Virginia Treatment Center for Children—will include a 472,000-sf parking deck for more than 1,000 vehicles. (The Treatment Center for Children will relocate to the Children’s Hospital at VCU’s Brook Road campus.)
“The oncology tower will be the new hub for most of our cancer services downtown,” says Gordon Ginder, M.D., director of VCU Massey Cancer Center. “Our goal is to create a welcoming, healing environment with easier access, improved patient flow and soothing aesthetics.”
Sandy Tkacz, AIA, ACHA, EDAC, health principal with HDR, the project’s designer, notes that the ambulatory tower “will not only allow patients to have all of these services integrated in the same location for easy navigation, but also change the Richmond skyline and the face of the city.”
The groundbreaking ceremony for VCU Health's new outpatient facility included (from left) George Emerson, a member of VCU Health System Authority Board of Directors; Gordon Ginder, M.D., director of VCU Massey Cancer Center; Marsha Rappley, M.D., CEO of VCU Health System Authority and vice president of health sciences at VCU; Michael Rao, Ph.D, president of Virginia Commonwealth University and VCU Health System; Deborah Davis, CEO of VCU Hospitals and Clinics and vice president for clincal affairs at VCU; Peter Buckley, M.D., dean of the VCU School of Medicine and executive vice president for medical affairs at VCU Health; Harry R. Thalhimer, MCV Foundation chairman of the board; and Larry Little, vice president of support services and planning, VCU Health System. Image; VCU
HDR and Hourigan Construction are design-build partners on the project’s Building Team that also includes Ventana, which will design, manufacture, and install the building’s exterior wall systems, whose skin will consist of punched openings, flat curtainwall, saw-toothed curtainwall, and glass guardrails.
VCU is definitely in expansion mode right now. In May, the university, in joint venture with Sheltering Arms Hospital, began construction on a 200,000-sf, $119 million Rehab Institute within 25 acres of the West Creek Medical Park that will have 114 beds when it opens in 2020. (Hourigan Construction and HDR are working together on this project, too.) Earlier this month, the university broke ground on a $93 million 133,000-sf Engineering Research Building, whose design will emphasize collaboration. (Richmond-based architecture firms Baskervill and Smith McClane Architects, and Boston-based firm Goody Clancy, designed this facility. Washington, D.C.-based Page/SST Planners designed the lab spaces.)
Related Stories
| Feb 6, 2012
Siemens gifts Worcester Polytechnic Institute $100,000 for fire protection lab renovation
Siemens support is earmarked for the school’s Fire Protection Engineering Lab, a facility that has been forwarding engineering and other advanced degrees, graduating fire protection engineers since 1979.
| Feb 2, 2012
Fire rated glazing helps historic university preserve its past
When the University embarked on its first major addition since the opening of Hutchins Hall in 1933, preserving the Collegiate Gothic-style architecture was of utmost importance.
| Feb 2, 2012
Next phase of construction begins on Scripps Prebys Cardiovascular Institute
$456 million Institute will be comprehensive heart center for 21st Century.
| Feb 1, 2012
Two new research buildings dedicated at the University of South Carolina
The two buildings add 208,000 square feet of collaborative research space to the campus.
| Jan 31, 2012
Fusion Facilities: 8 reasons to consolidate multiple functions under one roof
‘Fusing’ multiple functions into a single building can make it greater than the sum of its parts. The first in a series on the design and construction of university facilities.
| Jan 27, 2012
BRB Architects designs new campus center for Molloy College
Intended to be the centerpiece of the College’s transformation from a commuter college to a 24-hour learning community, the “Public Square” will support student life with spaces such as a café, lounges, study rooms, student club space, a bookstore and an art gallery.
| Jan 19, 2012
BOKA Powell-designed facility at Texas A&M Bryan campus
The new facility provides programs for the Texas A&M Health Science Center, the Texas Brain and Spine Institute, Mary Crowley Cancer Research Centers, and Blinn College Allied Health programs.
| Jan 4, 2012
Shawmut Design & Construction awarded dorm renovations at Brown University
Construction is scheduled to begin in June 2012, and will be completed by December 2012.
| Jan 3, 2012
New Chicago hospital prepared for pandemic, CBR terror threat
At a cost of $654 million, the 14-story, 830,000-sf medical center, designed by a Perkins+Will team led by design principal Ralph Johnson, FAIA, LEED AP, is distinguished in its ability to handle disasters.
| Dec 20, 2011
Gluckman Mayner Architects releases design for Syracuse law building
The design reflects an organizational clarity and professional sophistication that anticipates the user experience of students, faculty, and visitors alike.
