Baptist Medical Center $130 Million Patient Tower

Clayco and Legacy Building Group are the winning bidders to build one of the region’s largest construction projects with a green light: Missouri Baptist Medical Center’s $130 million patient tower, entryway and garage in Town & Country.

Rounding out the project team are architectural firm HOK, engineering firm KJWW Engineering Consultants, electrical contractor Sachs Electric, mechanical contractor Murphy Co. and civil engineering firm Stock & Associates. Rebecca Nolan is senior vice president and managing principal of HOK’s St. Louis office. Todd Weaver is president of Legacy Building Group.

Clayco’s team beat out three other contractor/architectural teams for the work: Paric and ACI/Boland; SM Wilson & Co. and Christner; and Alberici and the Lawrence Group.

The project, originally proposed in March 2008, finally has a start date, which is welcome news to a construction industry that has seen its project pipeline evaporate.

Missouri Baptist is set to break ground in February on the new 227,000-square-foot, six-story West Pavilion patient tower and a five-story parking garage on its 65-acre campus at Interstate 270 and Highway 40.

The new tower is the first sizable capital project Missouri Baptist has pursued since it completed the $49.7 million East Pavilion two years ago. The East Pavilion, built by McCarthy Building Cos., included a new emergency department and cancer center in a five-story addition.

Missouri Baptist President Joan Magruder began discussions about the West Pavilion last year, but the project is moving forward now, in part, thanks to attractive construction pricing.

Materials pricing could be headed up, making now an opportune time to lock in lower prices, according to the Associated General Contractors of America. The AGC reported Dec. 14 that diesel, copper and brass mill shapes are on the rise. “Public agencies and private owners contemplating construction projects should treat today’s figures as a warning shot,” AGC Chief Economist Ken Simonson said in a statement this week. “Prices for many materials have stopped falling and are poised for increases.”
Welcome work

A perpetual shelving of a long list of projects, including Ballpark Village downtown and multiple projects throughout the region, has put a strain on the construction industry. In the St. Louis area, the amount of construction work-hours performed through November is down 30.5 percent compared to 2008, according to Len Toenjes, president of Associated General Contractors of St. Louis.

The unemployment rate for construction workers nationally was 19.4 percent at the end of November, higher than any other sector of the economy, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Twenty-seven thousand construction workers lost their jobs nationally last month, on top of 56,000 construction jobs lost in October.

“We need about 10 more like it,” Toenjes said of Missouri Baptist’s new tower. “There’s a lot of uncertainty in the health-care industry because of the health-care debate going on in Washington,” he said. “So even some of the health-care providers that do have the financial capacity have been holding off or delaying projects.”

Missouri Baptist reported $352.7 million in revenue in 2008, down from $370 million in 2007. The hospital is an affiliate of BJC HealthCare, the region’s largest hospital operator with 13 hospitals and revenue of $3.2 billion in 2008.

To keep project costs in check, Missouri Baptist is using an “integrated project delivery” construction process that BJC used in the $28 million expansion completed this year at Barnes-Jewish St. Peters Hospital.

“It’s bringing all the parties together so that everyone is on the same page on the design,” said Doug Black, Missouri Baptist’s vice president of strategic planning. “You don’t have as many changes because everyone was involved on the front end.” The St. Louis Council of Construction Consumers gave general contractor Tarlton its best practices award for pre-project planning for the St. Peters project, which was completed 35 days ahead of schedule and came in 4 percent under budget.

The integrated project delivery process includes one contract with the architect, contractors and engineers. Clayco CEO Bob Clark said the process is less adversarial and more team-oriented than the standard design-bid-construct approach.

“You get a bigger bang for your buck, and there’s less of a chance the project goes over budget,” Clark said. “We’re hearing about it across the board with large, complex projects.”
Project details

Missouri Baptist’s patient tower project is the first phase of a multiyear plan to add nearly a million square feet to the hospital. Town & Country officials approved a master plan in September that allows the addition of up to 900,000 square feet of space at Missouri Baptist over the next 30 years.

The hospital is adding 96 patient rooms in the new West Pavilion but will keep its 489-patient bed count by shifting semi-private rooms to private rooms. The construction project, which is expected to be completed by 2013, also will add a new entrance to the hospital, which is located at interstates 270 and 64.

Missouri Baptist has tapped Nashville, Tenn.-based Healthcare Performance Partners to advise on efficiency guidelines, modeled after “Lean” manufacturing principles. The guidelines will be included in the West Pavilion design and construction process.