Located in Broomfield, Colorado, the Children’s Hospital Colorado North Expansion project responded to the growing healthcare needs of families in Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming. The strategy devised by the design-build team was a substantial greenfield expansion of the current 47,000-square-foot multi-specialty clinic, urgent care, and surgery center. This metamorphosed into a 236,000-square-foot pediatric hospital, with over 120,000 square feet dedicated to multi-specialty outpatient care. The facility provides a comprehensive range of services for families including pediatric orthopedics and sports medicine, cancer services, behavioral health services, ophthalmology, neurology, cardiology, ENT, urology, dentistry, and more, all under one roof.
In addition to the new five story medical office building and outpatient clinic, the project also included expanded urgent and emergency care, 24 inpatient beds, a sleep study lab, community educational programs, sterile processing, a pharmacy, a laboratory and new nutrition services for patients and families. To serve this building expansion and future expansions, work included an addition to the central utility plant and corresponding infrastructure services.
The RMH Group provided full-service mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering for the project. This covered designing the specialized heating, ventilation, air conditioning, medical gas, building automation, energy code compliance, plumbing, electrical service, regular and standby power distribution, power provision for mechanical and hospital equipment, lighting, and specification of fire protection and suppression systems.
Integrated Project Delivery: A Collaborative Success
The project team was driven by the singular goal of providing Children’s Hospital a solution that would accommodate their growing needs while remaining fully operational and concluded that the Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) approach would be ideal for the project. The IPD model enabled the team to share both risks and rewards, ensuring a “project first” mindset that drove innovation and teamwork. Working in a shared workspace, the co-located team was instrumental in maintaining open communication and preventing the siloing often seen in traditional construction projects.
Innovative Solutions and Overcoming Challenges
The design-build team leveraged groundbreaking engineering aspects to inject unique innovations into the project. Key among these are wireless lighting controls, which enhance flexibility and control of the lighting system, contributing to energy efficiency and comfort for staff and patients.
The team also incorporated an innovative power generation technology involving on-board paralleling of standby power generators. This relatively new technology, harnessed by only one other hospital in Colorado, replaces the traditional paralleling switch gear. The result is a boost in power supply reliability and significant savings in money and space within the facility.
Beyond these, the team implemented two different substation feeds from the utility provider to ensure a redundant power supply to the facility. This added layer of security guarantees an uninterrupted power supply, guaranteeing the hospital’s ability to provide continuous care, even during a power outage.
RMH prioritized delivering high-quality, energy-efficient MEP systems aligned with the project’s objectives while ensuring financial responsibility for initial and operational expenses. Collaboration between the design-build team and the Children’s Hospital staff led to a facility achieving an Energy Use Intensity (EUI) of 150, surpassing the future compliance benchmark of 172 EUI set by the State of Colorado’s Building Performance Standards for hospitals by 2030.
The team faced significant challenges, including maintaining hospital operations during construction and addressing unforeseen soil issues. An initial plan for a basement was scrapped due to unfavorable soil conditions, leading to a creative redesign that expanded the ground floor, saving time and costs. The team’s ability to adapt and innovate despite these obstacles was a testament to their expertise and dedication.
A Milestone Achievement for The RMH Group and Partners
Winning the DBIA Design Excellence Award underscores the significance of the Children’s Hospital Colorado North Expansion project as a benchmark in healthcare construction. For The RMH Group and their partners, this award is not only a recognition of their hard work and ingenuity but also a testament to the power of collaboration and the impact of thoughtful, patient-focused design.
As leaders in the industry, The RMH Group and their partners have set a new standard for healthcare projects, paving the way for future innovations and continued excellence in design-build delivery. This award celebrates the design-build team’s achievement and reaffirms their commitment to making a difference through engineering and collaborative efforts.
Design-Build Team Members:
- General Contractor: G.H. Phipps Construction Companies
- Architect: Treanor
- MEP Engineering: The RMH Group
- Civil Engineering: Enertia Consulting Group
- Structural Engineering: KL&A
- Landscaping: Outside Landscape Architects
- Technology: Ross & Baruzzini
- Medical Equipment: CPI
- Sound & Acoustics: Wave Engineering
