Meeting Demand

New Cancer Center Rising at Yale-New Haven Hospital

Yale-New Haven Hospital’s new Smilow Cancer Hospital has topped out, and when it opens in October 2009, it will consolidate oncology services under one roof.

The Smilow Cancer Hospital is rising between two existing facilities on the campus and is connected to the neighboring children's hospital via a five-story bridge.

“Because people are living longer, more will develop cancer,” says Bill Mahoney, the owner’s representative for the Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven in New Haven, Conn. “We have seen demand increase. We opened an ambulatory infusion site because our existing [hospital] could not handle the quantity of patients coming in. That was built on a temporary basis.”

The 511,000-sq-ft cancer hospital, the largest of three projects now under construction on the Yale-New Haven campus, represents a $467 million investment by the hospital. Construction manager at risk Turner Construction Co. of Milford, Conn., broke ground on the 14-story tower in September 2006 and topped out in July. Construction costs are $252.8 million.

Private developers are building two additional projects and will lease the space, except for first-floor retail, back to Yale-New Haven.

To obtain a certificate of occupancy for the cancer facility, Yale-New Haven needed to complete at least half of a new parking deck. Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. of Boston stepped in and will develop the six-story, 850-car garage at 2 Howe St. About 53,000 sq ft of retail and office space as well as 24 studio and one-bedroom residential units for nurses, physicians and families of cancer patients are included in the garage.

Gilbane Building Co. of Providence, R.I., began construction in June 2008 on the garage project, which was designed by Spagnolo Gisness & Associates of Boston.

A spread-footer foundation will support the precast concrete design, which will be clad with metal mesh and manufactured stone architectural features. The project is scheduled for a fourth quarter 2009 completion.

Nick Haney, project manager in the development and construction group at Intercontinental, would not release the cost, but the city of New Haven estimates it at between $60 million and $70 million.

Meanwhile, Fusco of New Haven has started construction on the $97 million 55 Park, a six-story, 146,000-sq-ft building that will house laboratories, pharmacy, loading docks and conference and retail space. Svigals & Partners of New Haven designed the building. The clinical labs will perform testing for the entire 944-bed Yale-New Haven Hospital.

A green cancer hospital

Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott of Boston designed the cancer hospital. The team aims for basic LEED certification.

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“It has a contemporary look and is sustainable,” says Garry Baker, principal in charge of the project for Shelpey Bulfinch.

To make way for the cancer hospital, Turner demolished a former nursing dormitory and office space, recycling the concrete and steel. Overall, Turner will recycle 98% of the construction waste generate by the project and the demolition.

Materials will include low- or no-volatile organic compound paints, sealants, carpets and flooring. Products were purchased from local manufacturers whenever possible. A renewable terra cotta will clad the exterior. Lighting controls will decrease electrical consumption.

Cancer hospital features

The 4,900-ton structural-steel frame building sits on a 4-ft-thick mat foundation, which is 8 ft thick at the elevator shafts. Plumbing pipes and electrical conduit will run through a 3-ft layer of gravel that tops the mat. An 8-in. layer of concrete forms the basement floor.

The 511,000 sq ft facility topped out over the summer and is scheduled to open its doors in October 2009.

Four linear accelerators and a gamma knife will be installed in the basement. About 1.5 million lbs of lead bricks, weighing up to 40 lbs each, were installed to shield people outside the rooms from the radiation, says Curtis Kuck, project manager for Turner.

The first floor will house breast and gynecology services and the second floor three magnetic resonance imaging machines and other diagnostic services. The third floor will contain 12 operating rooms, one equipped with an MRI.

Offices and clinical space will occupy the fourth floor. Mechanical equipment takes up the fifth and sixth levels. Floors seven and eight house infusion and exam rooms, and nine through 15, skipping 13, contain 112 patient rooms.

“We planned this building with two shelled floors, but our census is so high, we believe we can justify fitting them out now,” Mahoney says.

The seventh floor of the building steps back to create a more slender bed tower. Patients and families will be able to access a 7,000-sq-ft healing garden—with plants, trees, sculptures and a water feature—from the seventh floor.

Terra cotta from Germany, arriving in 50- by 15-ft panels, will give the appearance of a clapboard facade. The terra cotta panel incorporates a waterproof drainage system.

“It gives the ability to erect the exterior walls from within, so you wouldn’t have to stage the building and erect floor by floor,” Baker says. “They are factory assembled and delivered to the site.”

Three bridges and a service tunnel will link the cancer center with other campus facilities.

One five-story steel bridge connects the cancer facility to the existing children’s hospital next door.

“We had to open up the north side of the children’s hospital, take the precast off the full height of the building, put some steel in to support the bridge on that side, put the precast back and do our tie-ins on five floors for the bridge,” Kuck says.

A second single-level bridge connects the cancer center to the East Pavilion’s same-day surgery center. The third bridge will connect the center to the laboratory building.

Turner created a preplan with sketches of the anticipated tie-in work and reviewed the plans with the hospital’s epidemiologist. The construction company placed barriers to keep the construction activity separate from patient activity and also installed exhaust fans to pull contaminates away from the operating facility.

A 95-ft long tunnel connects the new cancer center with the laboratory building. Crews dug under a three-lane city street, working evening and night shifts. Wastewater lines run below the tunnel and stormwater lines and electrical conduit above.

Throughout the project, patients in the existing hospital have watched the new building’s progress. Some have made signs, and construction workers have responded in kind.

“Everybody on site will tell you they’re not building a Wal-Mart or office building,” Mahoney says. “This is a cancer hospital, and every one of us, unfortunately, has been affected by it through the years.”

Team Box:
Smilow Cancer Hospital
Owner: Yale-New Haven Hospital, New Haven
General Contractor: Turner Construction Co., Milford, Conn.
Architect: Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott, Boston
Landscape Architect: Towers/Golde, New Haven
Mechanical/Electrical Engineers: Bard, Rao + Athanas, Watertown, Mass.
Plumbing Engineer: R.W. Sullivan Consulting Engineers, Boston
Environmental Consultants: GZA Geoenvironmental, Bloomfield, Conn.