Structure Tone Southwest

Architect:

Kohn Pedersen and Fox & Karlsberger Associates (South Tower); EwingCole/RDLA (West Tower); Ballinger (core and building façade)

Scope Of Work

LF Driscoll managed a multi-phased, seven-year expansion to double the size of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s main facility while also modernizing each department. Completed in 2008, the expansion included more than 800,000sf of new construction, more than 253,000sf of renovations, and underground parking for the nation’s second highest ranked hospital.

LF Driscoll has been a member of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia team since 1989 and has expanded the hospital network to new campuses on Schuylkill Avenue in Center City Philadelphia, and Plainsboro, New Jersey.

Phase I: South Tower Expansion, Renovations, and Parking Garage

Completed in 2004, the South Tower is a 383,360sf, 12-story, structural steel addition to the main hospital building providing expanded bed capacity and an improved patient and family experience.

The South Tower project also expanded the Emergency Department, which houses the only Level I Pediatric Trauma Center in the region. The expansion included new trauma rooms, treatment bays, and a larger emergency transport department. Included were 73,360sf of renovations to the largest pediatric intensive care program in the country; now consisting of a 38-bed pediatric intensive care unit and a 40-bed pediatric cardiac care unit.

Phase II: West Towers, Inpatient and Diagnostic Wings, and Co-Generation Plant

14-story Northwest Tower and 12-story Southwest Tower, both of structural steel, total 350,000sf and were completed in 2008. To create an operating room expansion in a space free of interior structural columns, the 10th floor of the Northwest Tower supports the suspension of five floors below. The suspended floors were constructed on temporary supports with bracing to prevent lateral movement. A hydraulic jacking system was used to transfer loads on the 10^th floor trusses as the lower floor support columns were removed. The number of operating rooms was increased from 13 to 24.

The towers include an expanded cardiac center and the pediatric oncology center. Catheterization and clinical laboratories were added. A new pediatric imaging center includes state-of-the-art imaging technologies and is networked with other institutions around the globe. This phase also involved the renovation and expansion of pathology, clinical labs, and medical training spaces.

The hospital’s MEP infrastructure was upgraded to support the new spaces and technologies. LF Driscoll installed a combined-heating-and-power (CHP) cogeneration plant consisting of two, 2,000 ton, 7,032 kW York YST centrifugal chiller units with Murray steam turbines.

A skyway between the main facility and the Wood Ambulatory Care Center was demolished to enable construction of the Southwest Tower. Two skyway structures were added with the new tower: the first runs the width of the Southwest Tower and Wood building, seamlessly joining the two facilities on three levels and housing several departments; the second skyway provides access between the facilities on two levels.