Healthcare Campus Renewal Project

IMEG provided mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection and technology design, construction administration services, and was retained as the Commissioning Authority for the SSM Saint Louis University Hospital Campus renewal project. The project included a new replacement hospital and ambulatory care center and was a collaboration between SSM Health, Saint Louis University, and SLUCare physicians to consolidate outpatient diagnostic, clinical, and patient treatment services that were fragmented across multiple service locations.

The 643,593-sf replacement hospital has 316 private patient rooms, 16 operating rooms, and a diagnostic and clinical chassis sufficient to service inpatient utilization demands housed in a 10-story patient tower. It houses five cardiac interventional rooms, seven special procedure rooms, seven CTs, three MRIs, three nuclear medicine suites, and eight endoscopy suites. A 178,532-sf outpatient facility and expanded emergency department with a six story, 956-stall parking garage was also added. The Emergency Department includes a special containment unit that can be used for typical patients but transition to a contained space to deal with potentially highly contagious patients.

The ambulatory care center is projected to serve 200,000 visits to the applicable physician practices and houses the clinical and diagnostic chassis to support projected outpatient and cancer program workloads. The existing west pavilion is anticipated to be re-purposed to accommodate approximately 100,000-sf of existing and relocated ambulatory services/support services, in addition to the new ambulatory care facility.

Sustainable design elements included a waterside economizer and the utilization of excess return air as make-up air for the kitchens. The design exceeded fan energy requirements through efficient duct routing and AHU design. Additionally, high-efficiency compact water tube boilers were included with stack economizers. Daylighting and LED light fixtures were integrated throughout the hospital, including patient rooms and clinical areas such as the ORs. As part of its master planning phase responsibilities, IMEG completed an assessment of the central utility plant and recommended how best to meet the needs of the repurposed west pavilion, the Desloge building, as well as any other miscellaneous loads that were connected to the existing power plant.

Commissioning was integrated throughout design and construction and into occupancy. Though the project did not require LEED Commissioning, IMEG followed typical LEED standards. Commissioning was performed on the chilled water, heating water, domestic hot water, pure water, air distribution, fire alarm, security, and closed circuit television systems, in addition to the boiler plant, pressure critical areas, stairwell and elevator pressurization, MV switchgear and associated equipment, unit substation and associated equipment, generators, UPS, lighting controls, sump pumps, medical gas, nurse call, and loss of power testing.

IMEG was an integral part of the team, leading the use of virtual reality to review typical rooms as part of the team QA/QC process. IMEG designed and arranged systems to allow for the extensive prefabrication used to reduce costs and meet the required schedule. The prefabrication included the use of bathroom pods.