In Medford this week, crews broke ground on one of the largest health care projects in Oregon. Portland-based Andersen Construction began excavation and foundation work for a six-story, 323,600-square-foot expansion of Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center.

The new, $420 million patient pavilion will provide critical care, cardiac care and advanced surgical space, as well as two stories of women’s and children’s health care space – including a state-of-the-art neonatal intensive care unit. After the addition is completed (spring 2023 is the target date), 79,000 square feet of the existing hospital will receive renovations.

“Most of the capital improvement and master facility plan is focused on increasing our capacity for our highest level acute patients,” said Mick Zdeblick, CEO of Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center – one of three critical care facilities in the Rogue Valley operated by Asante.

International firm HDR designed the patient pavilion. Jacobs Engineering is serving as a project management consultant.

“It’s a broader team approach,” Zdeblick said.

Andersen Construction will work with Ashland-based Adroit Construction, which will tackle the renovations in the existing building.

“Andersen has been great to work with because we wanted to encourage our local subcontractors and contractors to be employed on this project,” Zdeblick said. “And Adroit is a local company that knows our campus really well.”

The patient pavilion building will be fairly standard when it comes to construction typology, said Jerrod Kowalewski, a project executive with Andersen Construction.

“It’s pretty cut and dried,” he said. “They set it up well for an addition when they built the last tower expansion. I’d say, really, it’s like any hospital work. It’s the tie-ins and the making sure we’re not disrupting the daily operations.”

There are several logistical challenges, however, including an expedited design process, Kowalewski said. Plus, finding enough qualified subcontractors to work on a project of this size in Southern Oregon has proved difficult.

“We got brought on right when they were on concept last fall,” he said. “HDR is designing a (large) expansion in 12 months. We’re all working remotely with the user groups, so it will pose a challenge because they’re designing at the same time they’re designing the renovation phase for after this.”

Andersen Construction also is benefiting from its good relationship with Pacific Electric Group, according to Kowalewski. The union-affiliated subcontractor from Medford is teaming up with Oregon Electric Group on one of the project’s critical components – a series of prefabricated ceiling systems that will equip 20 new operating rooms.

“OEG has a lot of (preconstruction) prowess and prefab experience,” he said. “And the idea is to have common racks for MEPS and trying to get everyone dialed in and building in their shops up here. We’re trying to minimize on-site labor as much as possible by doing as much prefabrication as we can.”

The ceiling systems come with LED lighting, all required ductwork and all the boom supports for the operating booms.

Normally, the systems required in operating rooms create a substantial amount of congestion in the ceilings, said Ben Gengler, a senior project manager with Andersen Construction. This approach, known as a single large diffuser, integrates framing of the booms into the body of the diffuser, allowing installation in one piece.

“It minimizes overhead structure,” Gengler said. “And with 20 new ORs, taking that approach is saving us weeks of work. It’s not necessarily a cheaper approach from a construction standpoint, but from time savings and efficiency, it’s a very big savings for us.”

Wilsonville-based subcontractor Western Partitions Inc., renowned for its prefabricated wall systems, is scheduled to work on the project, Kowalewski added.

“We’re also looking a lot at the façade elements and seeing what we can do there” with prefabrication, he said.

The building’s shell will feature structural steel atop a concrete foundation and one level of below-grade parking.

“The steel structure and concrete are going to be very conventional,” Gengler said. “We’re using side plate in lieu of brace frame construction. It’s a more expensive assembly, and it upsizes a lot of the columns, but we realize the time savings on the installation side.”

The entire project was aided by extensive use of 3-D building information modeling (BIM) and augmented reality software, Zdeblick added. These tools allowed project team members and hospital staffers to virtually inspect the new pavilion as it was designed, give feedback, and further tinker with the pieces.

“HDR created floor layouts and design elements in 3-D and gave that to our clinicians,” he said. “They were literally walking through the BIM or 3-D program and critiquing it that way.”

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When the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) needed to update the courtyard between its three main theaters, it called on a team it knew well. Landscape architect Walker Macy, which had teamed with Hacker for work on the Ashland campus’ Thomas Theatre in 1998, was chosen as the lead designer.

“We were familiar with Oregon Shakespeare Festival,” said Chelsea McCann, principal at Walker Macy.

The team’s intimate knowledge of the area gave stakeholders added confidence for the renovation of the courtyard, which is commonly known as “the Bricks.” The area ties together the campus’ three main theaters, and hadn’t received a significant renovation in nearly 47 years.

“It was long overdue,” said Ted DeLong, general manager of OSF. “This is a courtyard that was put in when we built the Angus Bowmer Theatre in 1970.”

Among the biggest challenges was addressing accessibility, comfort and grade issues without changing the way people felt about the courtyard.

“This was a beloved face for the people of Ashland,” McCann said. “People have a lot of memories around the Bricks.”

The bricks themselves were set in sand, so many became wobbly and susceptible to damage by vehicle traffic. The courtyard serves as an access point to the theaters for trucks to load and unload materials for OSF’s plays.

“There were a lot of wooden curbs made out of railroad ties,” DeLong said. “It, in general, wasn’t the most comfortable place to walk or be.”

In addition, the site has a slope of up to 11 percent at certain spots, and work had to be completed during the campus’ off-season between November and February.

The renovation involved removal of all bricks and digging down to bare soil. Adroit Construction then poured concrete and replaced all of the bricks. Crews also added seating and improved lighting and sound systems on the stage. Hacker worked to add elevators to each of the three largest theaters. They also added a wheelchair lift to the Allen Elizabethan Theatre.

Then there was the weather. In Ashland, like much of Oregon, the 2016-17 winter was one of the harshest in recent years. During one ice storm, a large ash tree that was a focal point of the design, suffered substantial damage and had to be cut down.

“It was fairly exacting design in rugged conditions,” DeLong said. “It was a big logistical headache every day.”

After overcoming a multitude of issues, the team produced a result pleasing to stakeholders, according to McCann.

“This was a fantastic project,” she said. “It was a fun one to work on. Everyone was really engaged and the people were really supportive to have worked with.”

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Southern Oregon University has agreed to pay $2.5 million to construction workers who didn’t receive pay at prevailing wage rates for a misclassified building project.

The terms of a settlement agreement between the university and Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries were released last week. It’s the largest wage settlement in the agency’s history.

Work on SOU’s New Student Housing and Dining Commons project began in 2012 and concluded in 2013. At issue was whether it was a “public work” under Oregon law.

Adroit Construction of Ashland was the general contractor, ACC-SC Development was the developer and CHF Ashland was the owner of the housing portion of the project. BOLI‘s multiyear inquiry found that 44 contractors and subcontractors paid 325 workers rates below Jackson County’s prevailing wage.

SOU denied any wrongdoing, but said through a spokesman that it chose to pay rather than wage a costly legal campaign.

The agreement releases SOU and other parties from future wage claims associated with the project, according to BOLI spokesman Charlie Burr.

The university has sent checks to 179 workers; it faces a May deadline to pay those still owed.

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