Taller Order

New Queens Hospital Wing Sprouts Extra Floors Mid-Project

By Tom Stabile

A new addition to New York Hospital Queens had already managed a complex orchestration of tasks and topped out when the owner added a request for two more floors.

The project to add six new stories and 150,000 sq ft to New York Hospital Queens in Flushing, N.Y., had progressed smoothly by late 2007, especially considering a lengthy effort to win construction approvals. That’s why the challenge from hospital administrators to the project team, just as the new wing was set to top out, was a bit of a breath-taker: “Please add two new floors on top. Oh, and can you stick to the original budget, too?”

The new wing at New York Hospital Queens is slated to partially open at the end of the year and be complete in spring 2010. Crews finished adding two additional floors earlier this year and in March installed the precast panel façade, with full enclosure slated for late spring.

The team, after catching its breath, quickly figured out how to pull it off, says Thomas Gucciardo, assistant vice president and head of the modernization project at the hospital. “We looked at the cost, the implications on schedule, the regulatory requirements,” he says. “We determined it was achievable.”

That was one of various planning, engineering, and construction challenges that have made this deceivingly simple project that first broke ground in late 2006 into a multi-layered and improbably complicated $200 million effort.

Now, the 50-year-old hospital at Main St. and Booth Memorial Ave. is on track to open parts of its new eight-story wing at year end and to finish in spring 2010. The project includes a new three-story 372-space parking garage with two levels below grade that opened on a lot across Booth Memorial Ave. in November, as well as 19,000 sq ft of renovations to several floors of the existing hospital, which currently has four buildings and 605,000 sq ft. The facility had originally been Booth Memorial Hospital, and had several additions over the years. It was acquired in 1993 by the New York Hospital organization, which operates it as a community health care facility and teaching hospital.

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The new wing – which will add an upgraded vascular and heart center, a new ambulatory surgery suite with 10 operating rooms, 80 single-patient bedrooms, and 202,000 sq ft of new space, among other features – broke ground in late 2006, and topped out with its new floors earlier this year. Now, the project team is finishing façade installation and full enclosure this spring, and the roughing trades are busy moving up the one below-grade and seven above-grade floors, says Tom LePage, senior vice president and project executive on the job for Barr & Barr of New York, the construction manager.

Building a Community Consensus

The project team had its hands full early on with the hospital’s desire to add expand on a site that was maxed out on floor-area-ratio capacity under city zoning regulations. The administration saw the project as critical, as the growing population of Flushing and the closure of nearby hospitals added pressure to a facility already hitting its operational capacity.

Gucciardo says the master planning effort began in 2004 with Barr & Barr and Perkins Eastman, the New York-based architect, followed by design work in 2005 and going through the city’s ULURP planning process in 2006.

The $200 million project to add a new seven-story wing to New York Hospital Queens in Flushing includes a large, open, concierge-style lobby that will serve both as a central introduction point as well as a hub to funnel visitors and improve the facility’s security attributes.

The planning effort involved coordination between the project team and administrators, medical department heads, and even the hospital board, says Frank Gunther, principal at Perkins Eastman.

“We found a hospital that had an energetic administration with a lot of good ideas but a very old and tired physical plant,” Gunther adds. “And so what we suggested to them was to obtain large scale community facility designation for their property, which included [space] across the street and then also to apply for a zoning change to allow for greater density.”

The effort entailed getting approval to take down an existing two-story parking facility on site, win approval to construct a new one across the street, and use the freed-up space for the new wing. That required winning R6 zoning instead of the previous R4, as well as height and setback variances. And it meant protracted community engagement, Gucciardo says.

“We basically met frequently and cooperatively with community leaders, community boards, local civic associations, the borough president’s office, and the city council,” he adds. “In the end they were thrilled with our final plan.”

The new wing for New York Hospital Queens, at left of image, finally will create a logical and appealing entrance with a high-ceilinged glass atrium, at center, that connects the addition to the existing hospital structure.

A big speed bump was the new parking facility. Gunther says the community was skeptical about the scale of the garage and its impact on the neighborhood. So the project team came up with solution that was more expensive but ultimately well-received – digging down to put two of the three parking levels below grade.

The redesigned project ultimately sailed through the approval process and early construction phases – that is, until the hospital administration decided to think taller.

Topping Out Two Times

The original project scope envisioned adding two floors of shell space to use for future expansion when funds became available. But well into the initial construction effort, the hospital’s leadership decided it was worth asking – could the future floors be built now without adding to the budget?

It was a head-scratcher on several levels. It not only required a feasibility study, but it also entailed pursuing new planning approvals, because the original set did not envision two more floors. Gucciardo says the team surprised itself when the initial review found the concept doable under the existing budget, thanks to value engineering, construction savings in soft cost categories, and use of the project contingency. The hospital the project team moving on the new plans in March 2008.

“We authorized the project team to look at a redesign almost immediately when it appeared to be achievable,” Gucciardo says. “We began the design concurrent instead of waiting for full approval.” The team went back to everyone to win the approvals – including city and community planning bodies, as well as financing entities contributing to the project, such as the state health department and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Barr & Barr’s LePage says the team got final authorization to proceed in August 2008 and construction began in November.

The project’s biggest initial roadblock was community opposition to a proposed three-level parking structure -- a problem the project team overcame with a more expensive but ultimately successful plan to put two levels below grade and leave the top level at grade. The 372-space structure sits across Booth Memorial drive.

The architect’s Gunther says the idea was brilliant in the end because it ensures that the eventual addition of the new floors wouldn’t impact an occupied structure. “It’s really serendipity to see your second phase being built before they finish the first phase,” he adds. “I’ve not seen this in my career.”

Modernized and Reinvented

By the time it was contemplating new floors, the team had already cleared big hurdles, LePage says. One was carefully taking down the old concrete parking structure, and another was excavating down to 24 ft below grade to install the new basement. The underpinning went down to 8 ft below the existing structure, largely because the floor-to-floor heights of the new facility at 14 ft-5 in exceeds the 12-ft heights of the older adjoining wing.

LePage says the extensive mechanical equipment requirements of new health care facilities made that floor-to-floor matching a puzzle for the whole new wing. “There is a full basement, but there really isn’t a third floor,” he says. “We actually go from connections at the first and second floors to the fourth floor in order to match up the heights.”

That process entailed installing ramp-style sloped bridges at the connecting floors between the old building and new wing, which are separated by several feet because there are windows on the old façade, Gunther says.

But the new wing also serves a bigger purpose – creating a new entrance and identity for the hospital, complete with a new driveway drop-off, Gunther adds. “We created a forecourt, a whole separate entrance courtyard with a welcoming two-story-high glass structure,” he says. “Now, you’ve got this seven-story structure in the front that says, ‘This is the new state-of-the-art health care.’ It looks new, it looks clean, it looks bright – it has a lot of sunlight in it – and it’s going to be everything the community would need.”

The $200 million wing was originally envisioned with five floors above grade, but mid-way into the project, the hospital asked the team to explore adding two floors without impacting the budget. The team found a way, began construction of the new floors in November, and by March had already added the exterior panels.

The wing will spread out on the first floor to create the new ambulatory surgery center, which is currently on the fifth floor of the old facility. That suite will have 10 operating rooms, a recovery space, a waiting area, and other facilities, with some of the work stretching into the first floor of the old adjoining wing. The next level will have a radiology imaging and non-invasive cardiology suite, also with a recovery room, and the next two floors will have patient beds. The additional floors will be core-and-shell ready for future use, and above is a mechanical equipment penthouse level. The new wing also has six large conference rooms, which will aid in the hospital’s dual mission as a teaching facility, Gucciardo says. The additional floors may also free up room in the old facility for future classrooms.

Gunther says the new wing also projects a hospitality-based approach, especially through an open, concierge-style lobby, which is four times larger than what the hospital now has, and which features extensive daylight, a water feature, and natural stone, tile, and carpeting. The daylighting is one of several sustainable design elements in the new wing, with other examples including solar tempered glazing and fritted glass finishes on the curtain wall; extensive air-quality control features such as demand-based ventilation controls and the use of low- or zero-level volatile organic compound materials in most areas; and natural material selections for walls, flooring, ceilings, and furniture. The facility also includes an advanced building management system to control new electric, water, and other utilities, as well as high-efficiency lighting, plumbing, HVAC, and boiler-chiller systems.

Other notable features of the project include high-tech connections into the surgical suites for live data feeds during procedures; construction of a full loop access through all basement levels in the entire facility to connect them to the basement loading dock; and careful selection of the precast slenderwall-with-windows façade and the curtain wall for the new wing to match it with the metal exterior of the main hospital and brick façades of the other additions.

“Rather than a clunky brick box, we have a lot of light and airiness to the building, which I think is important to a contemporary hospital today,” Gunther says.

One of the upper floors added mid-project houses mechanical equipment, including one of the two chiller units for the new addition, pictured here. The two floors added mid-project largely house shell space for future expansion at New York Hospital Queens.

Gucciardo says with most of the project already bid, the economic downturn has not proved an obstacle, and in fact has led to some better-than-expected pricing on subcontractors under the $125 million construction portion of the budget.

As the project progresses, LePage says his team continues meeting with hospital representatives daily to ensure the team minimizes disruption to hospital functions. “Infectious control is an ongoing issue, and we monitor it on a daily basis,” he adds.

Gucciardo says probably the most satisfying aspect of the project in a broad sense is how the hospital has succeeded in an ambitious effort that the community sorely needs as other nearby hospitals have closed in recent years.

“It is a growing neighborhood and unfortunately has shrinking access to health care,” he adds. “This hospital had significance years ago, and now it has more significance today.”

Team:

Owner: New York Hospital Queens
Construction Manager: Barr & Barr Construction, New York
Architect: Perkins Eastman, New York
Structural Engineer: Atkinson Koven Feinberg, New York
Steel: Steel Co., Pennsylvania
Concrete: Baywood Concrete, Bohemia, N.Y.
Excavation: John Civetta & Sons, Bronx, N.Y.
Plumbing: Olympic Plumbing, Queens, N.Y.
Electrical: EJ Electric Installation, Queens, N.Y.
Mechanical: Heritage Sheetmetal, Fredericksburg, Va.; RJR Mechanical, Maspeth, N.Y.; Seamans
Drywall: Interstate Drywall, Clifton, N.J.
Sprinkler: Premier Fire Sprinkler, Central Islip, N.Y.
Precast Wall: Beton, Canada
Curtain Wall: Neversink Glass, White Lake, N.Y.