Central California Hospital Work Climbs With Population: Fresno Heart Hospital May Be the Region’s Most Intriguing Project

By Charles Lewis

A growing population in central California is fueling hospital construction and expansion projects.

Simply put, “there are more sick people,” said Brenda Turner, a spokesperson in Bakersfield for San Francisco-based Catholic Healthcare West, which operates five hospital facilities in the Bakersfield area.

Its Mercy Southwest Hospital had been slated for a 90,000-sq.-ft., $30 million patient tower, but because of state earthquake retrofit requirements, the expansion plan has been shelved indefinitely. Turner said there is no new plan for Mercy that includes a tower.

Expansion persists nonetheless at the Mercy campus with construction of an approximately 20,000-sq.-ft. permanent modular building that will house the hospital’s existing urgent-care facility. Turner said the building will be ready for occupancy later this month and that will allow construction to begin on Mercy’s new emergency room and an eight-bed intensive- care unit.

She added that expansion plans also call for new lab facilities and a six-bed, well-baby nursery.

The Clark Construction Group Inc. is the general contractor on the project, and Bakersfield’s BFGC Architects and Planners Inc. is handling the design.

Farther north in Fresno, hospital expansion blankets the city.

Downtown, the Community Regional Medical Center campus is about midway through its massive, multiphased expansion project. Phase 1, representing nearly $250 million in total costs, began in spring 2001 with the construction of a six-story, 340,000-sq.-ft. building, complete with helipads, 58 intensive-care beds and 10 burn-treatment rooms.

In Clovis, about 20 miles north, Community Medical Center has completed three of its four expansion projects totaling $26.9 million. CMC-Clovis upgraded its central energy plant and parking facilities to serve a 48,000-sq.-ft. outpatient care center, which opened late last year.

Clark Construction is the general contractor for both projects. Baltimore, Md.-based RTKL Associates Inc. is in charge of designing the downtown campus, and Hammel, Green and Abrahamson Inc. with corporate offices in Minneapolis, Minn., is the architectural firm on the Clovis project.

Kaiser Permanente has two projects currently under construction totaling $31 million, one in Clovis and one in Selma. Fresno general contractor Harris Construction Co. Inc. and Stockton architecture firm Lesovsky & Donaldson Architects have teamed up on both projects. The new medical office buildings are scheduled for occupancy later this year and will house internal medicine and pediatric clinics, laboratories, pharmacies and health education services.

The two-story, 65,000-sq.-ft. Clovis clinic will serve 22,500 Kaiser members with 32 physicians. The 38,000-sq.-ft. Selma facility will provide service to 13,000 Kaiser members with 18 physicians.

Also growing is Fresno’s St. Agnes Medical Center, which embarked on its $120 million expansion program in 2000 with a central plant upgrade and a three-level, 800-stall parking garage.

The hospital opened its new catheterization recovery lab in June. The 17,000-sq.-ft., $6 million project provides recovery space and support services for the entire medical center.

Construction is currently underway on 230,000 sq. ft. of space at the hospital for a new heart and vascular center, and expanded emergency and radiology departments. There also will be a new medical education center, which will include a library, conference rooms and an auditorium.

The $84.4 million project, expected to be complete in 2004, will also add new private patient rooms.

Visalia’s Seals and Biehle is the general contractor, and San Diego-based The Stichler Group Inc. is the architect on the project.

North Fresno is also home to what may be the most intriguing project, the $37 million Fresno Heart Hospital.

Construction began in July 2001 on the 138,000-sq.-ft., hotel-like building on 7.3 acres. Tim Marsh, president of Harris Construction Co. Inc., said building the hospital in a “fast-track mode” was the general contractor’s biggest challenge.

“We started construction before the plans were finished,” Marsh added.

Workers began pouring more than 7,700 yds. of concrete in August 2001, moving 17,000 yds. of earth in the process. The hospital is built with 1.7 million lbs. of steel, 400,000 lin. ft. of metal studs and 11,000 sq. ft. of polished, Brazilian marble on the exterior.

“This is a very tailored building, both inside and out,” said local architect John L. Wiens, who joined the team midstream when the original firm “vacated the project.”

“The biggest hurdle for me was getting the hospital back on track,” Wiens said.

He said the building doesn’t have a “hospital look.” Guests pull up beneath a porte-cochere and are greeted by stone floors and “nicely appointed interiors.”

The 60-bed facility with all-private rooms features carpeting throughout and “highly detailed” accoutrements, including wood headboards.

Tony Carr, chief executive officer for the hospital, said the building is designed with both patient and family in mind.

“No patient-care unit has more than 12 rooms,” Carr said, eliminating what he called “long, impersonal corridors” in favor of more workable, comfortable units.

The facility consists of a four-story patient tower connected to a two-story diagnostic and treatment building. There are four cardiac catheterization labs, three operating rooms, a 15-bed day program for cardiac catheterization and outpatient surgery, a 12-bed intensive-care unit, 48 inpatient rooms and an outpatient cardiology program.

FHH will also feature a cardiac treatment center open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for patients experiencing chest pains. The center is a bit like an emergency room for hearts, but physicians they will not be allowed to accept 911 calls, Carr said.

Carr added that the design-build project is unique in that it’s the first dedicated heart hospital in the state that’s locally owned. Forty-eight physicians own 49 percent of the hospital with Community Medical Centers owning the remaining 51 percent.

“We’ve worked real hard to come up with a design that doesn’t look or feel like a hospital,” Carr said. “An A+ physical environment can have an A+ physical effect on one’s brain.”