Many of the largest health care providers in the Portland-metro area are contributing to a building boom in the industry, and Legacy Emanuel – in the city’s Eliot neighborhood – is no exception.

Andersen Construction in October 2018 began building a new seven-story, 340,000-square-foot expansion of the Legacy Emanuel Medical Center. The firm is serving as construction manager/general contractor for the project, which was designed by Seattle firm NBBJ Architects.

Nearly a year of demolition work took place so the existing structure could blend with the new. Because the building – dubbed Emanuel West – is being constructed as a core-and-shell, with tenant improvements to come at a later date, substantial completion is expected by summer 2020.

“We’re building this structure to tie into medical office building two and the west wing,” said Tony Carson, a senior project manager with Andersen Construction. “This building sets off other tenant improvements to improve circulation, and we’re building what we call a bridge even though it’s not really a bridge. There’s a big atrium, and this bridge ties the buildings together and opens up the patient circulation.”

To get to that point, saw crews actually began work almost a year earlier. That allowed for construction of temporary air conditioning and wastewater systems to allow the existing building to continue to operate unimpeded.

“They shored the entire structure and saw-cut a six-inch joint between the old structure and where we were going to demo so we weren’t introducing any vibration,” Carlson said. “The noise was pretty minimal, but the vibration is the bigger issue.”

Because of this, the structure as a whole consists of a mixture of building types. There are two levels of parking beginning with one at-grade atop a slab-on-grade foundation supported by 211 separate 30-inch-diameter auger cast piles. The second level, a standard post-tensioned concrete deck, is topped by two more post-tensioned decks with cables bonded with grout inside their tubes. The top three levels, including the seventh with mechanical space, are being constructed using a framework of structural steel atop slab-on-deck concrete.

The completed shell space will be able to accommodate 22 operating rooms, seven procedure rooms, up to 40 intensive care rooms, prep-hold-and-recovery rooms, and 34 rooms for the Oregon Burn Center. Legacy Emanuel West will also enhance the health care provider’s treatment capabilities.

A seven-story foyer dominates the entire building at its northwest corner. This features a curtain wall system able to provide large amounts of natural light.

A rooftop amenity space will join a garden to allow patients and guests to enjoy fresh air.

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A ground-breaking ceremony was held Tuesday for a major expansion at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in North Portland, the first on the campus since the completion of Randall Children’s Hospital in 2012. The $210 million project will include an approximately 300,000-square-foot building with four levels of programming over two levels of parking, as well as the renovation of 80,000 square feet of existing space.

Andersen Construction is serving as the general contractor for the project, which was designed by Seattle-based NBBJ. Crews are currently performing precursory work, including installation of a new air handler, work to reroute electrical lines, and installation of new generators. Andersen will seek foundation permits next month, and hopes to get the project going in full swing by the end of this year.

The project is tentatively expected to last around 36 months. The new building, called Emanuel West, will be constructed first; then programming will be shifted into it while existing space is renovated. The new and upgraded facilities will include larger operating suites, an expanded cardiovascular intensive care unit, a new space for the Legacy Oregon Burn Center, and more than 100 new parking spaces for motor vehicles and bicycles.

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