Samaritan Health Services is on a coastal building spree.

Over the past year, significant progress has been made on a pair of large hospital construction projects – one in Newport and another in Lincoln City. Crews at the former site recently completed the first of two major phases of work, while crews at the latter site are tackling rough-in, framing and mechanical, electrical and plumbing work. That new, 52,000-square-foot building will replace an existing wood-framed hospital.

The $42 million Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital project is on schedule to finish in October, within the planned budget, according to spokeswoman Mary Jo Kerlin. Following a switchover of personnel and other resources from the old building, the new hospital is set to open to the public in February 2020. The Lincoln City project was designed by HGA Architects. Skanska USA Building is serving as construction manager/general contractor.

Recently, Skanska’s crews of carpenters, laborers and cement masons were busy finishing sections of the single-story building’s roof slab, while Anning-Johnson carpenters were installing both interior and exterior metal framing. McKinstry has been tasked with MEP work, while Carr Construction performed the steel erection work. Knottworks Construction, one of the few Lincoln City-based contractors involved, carried out civil work and site concrete; later, it will perform additional concrete landscaping.

“The construction of our replacement hospital building has been a wonderful experience, largely due to the skill and professionalism of our design-build team,” said Dr. Lesley Ogden, CEO of both Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital and Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport. “I had the opportunity to be part of this project from the beginning, so I saw how our staff and community members were encouraged to provide valuable input and insight. This allowed the architects to design a building unique to our special needs in Lincoln City.”

In addition to constructing a new primary hospital, crews will remodel the existing Health Professions Education Center building to provide administrative space and physical rehabilitation services. The project also includes demolition of the existing hospital building, creation of a new main parking lot, half-street improvements on the campus’ west and south sides, as well as smaller campus improvements.

Both the front and back portions of the new hospital will have offer greater operational efficiency than those in the existing building. This will improve workflow and patients’ privacy, Ogden said.

“The number of dedicated patient rooms will be fewer than what we have currently, but the number of flexible-use spaces is greater,” she said. “The overall effect is more clinical space for better patient care.”

The new hospital is being built with sufficient seismic strength to allow immediate occupancy following a major earthquake. This is standard today for a critical care facility, according to Todd Predmore, a Skanska USA Building vice president and account manager.

In Newport, meanwhile, a $57 million project is under way for Samaritan Health Services. The team of Colorado design-build firm Neenan Archistruction and Corvallis-based T. Gerding Construction is carrying out a rebuild of Pacific Communities Hospital.

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Construction has started on a replacement for a piece of Oregon health care history.

General contractor Skanska USA Building and subcontractor Knottworks Construction are building the new $42 million Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital in Lincoln City. The existing one is said to be the last remaining wood-framed hospital in the United States.

The current hospital, near Devils Lake, has served the community since its opening in 1968. But it no longer meets local, state and federal building codes.

“A while ago we were given a waiver,” said Dr. Lesley Ogden, CEO of both Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital and Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport. “I’ve never actually seen the documentation, but that’s the lore; we were given a waiver to continue to operate. And so although the building has treated us very well – it has served its life beautifully – but it’s time for new facilities.”

The existing facility will remain in operation through the end of 2019, when the new one is expected to be ready.

The new structure is being built, of course, to seismic code for a critical care facility, Skanska USA Building Vice President and Account Manager Todd Predmore said.

“Nobody would do a critical access facility out of wood,” he said with a laugh. “There are structural requirements and there is all kinds of equipment secured from the ceiling.”

Another issued faced by coastal builders is the threat of a tsunami. Critical emergency facilities, including hospitals, cannot be built in a flood zone. Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital, however, is on a slight elevation above Devils Lake, just outside Lincoln City’s tsunami inundation zone.

Samaritan Health Services had been examining possible replacements for North Lincoln Hospital for over a decade. The major problem was financial. Officials were not confident that voters would pass a bond measure.

“We couldn’t see a way forward,” Ogden said. “The district and Samaritan weren’t sure the community could raise the amount of money needed for a full replacement hospital.”

In the end, a unique solution came about. The North Lincoln Health District, which owned the hospital property and buildings, agreed to swap its interest in those assets in exchange for a promise from Samaritan Health Services to build a new hospital.

The new hospital will actually have a smaller footprint than its predecessor. Aesthetics will invoke a woodsy, Pacific Northwest feel.

“It’s radically different,” Ogden said. “A lot of what we have here is natural beauty, so we’re trying to incorporate the feeling of you’re here in Lincoln City and there’s something special about being here.”

That refreshing change will be merely one that occupants will notice.

“The old facility has a lot of really wide corridors and circulation space that’s used for nothing more than really walking around,” Ogden said.

As such, the new layout won’t include any redundant spaces not dedicated to care of patients.

“The hospital challenged our team to think outside the box and design it differently,” Predmore said. “They wanted it to be as efficient as possible and take up as little space as possible and still be functional.”

This project is one of two at the Oregon coast being carried out by Samaritan Health Services. Approximately 28 miles south, in Newport, Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital is being rebuilt.

A partnership between Neenan Archistruction, a design-build firm from Fort Collins, Colorado, and Corvallis-based T. Gerding Construction is carrying out the $57 million project. It’s being paid for with bond money approved by voters in the Pacific Communities Health District.

The Newport project calls for renovation of some of the existing facility, a three-story addition and a seismic retrofit. Work is expected to wrap up by the end of 2019.

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Residents on the Oregon coast from Depoe Bay and Toledo to Waldport and Yachats are closer to gaining a new hospital to serve their medical and health-related needs.

At 126,000 square feet, the new $57 million Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital under construction in Newport will offer 22 departments and a wider scope of services than the 25-bed hospital it’s replacing. The project is being paid for with money from a property tax bond measure passed by voters in 2015. Crews broke ground in May 2017 and are on track to finish by summer 2020.

Pacific Communities Health District is the project owner, and Samaritan Health Services will operate the hospital. It was designed by The Neenan Company, which also is serving as lead general contractor – in partnership with 50-year-old, Corvallis-based Gerding Builders.

The project is being handled in three phases via a method Neenan Co. calls “Archistruction.” The company adopted the approach, which combines architecture and construction rather than separating them out in the bid process, after realizing how concepts of design-build could help move forward more smoothly the types of health care projects upon which Neenan Co. has built its reputation.

“The key components of Archistruction are in line with design-build,” Neenan Co. project manager Jason Brown said. “There’s more efficient communication and better input at all levels, so the designs are more in tune with the client’s needs.”

The approach meshes well with Gerding Builders’ previous experience working on approximately 20 other major health care facilities, including several for Samaritan Health Services, according to Ryan McAlister, a pre-construction manager and project executive for Gerding Builders

“(Archistruction) is a great process; we figure it all out together,” he said. “This project has been an ongoing conversation and dialogue … We get to know each other, get a better idea of how to work together.”

Much of that dialogue included the people who would be working in the hospital, from doctors and nurses to “the people who keep the floors clean,” Brown said. Together, the project team and the hospital staff collaborated on a floor plan. That plan was then used to create mock-ups of several rooms so that everyone could see how the designs and layouts would work in a real-world situation.

“We brought in beds, wheelchairs, equipment, mops – pretty much anything they would use – and we discussed what worked and where we could improve on things before construction started,” Brown said.

Hospital administrators say the project team’s willingness to create an inclusive environment in the areas of planning, design and construction has helped drum up an extremely high level of buy-in from hospital staff that might not have been possible otherwise.

“If you ask the employees, it’s their hospital,” Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital CEO Lesley Ogden said. “They feel invested in it.”

The project was placed in seismic design zone categorized ‘F’ – largely because of the location near a major fault and occupants’ vulnerability – so Neenan Co. had to develop strategic designs and construction plans to meet stringent building standards.

The hospital that previously served the community was built in 1988. It will be renovated to accommodate administrative and secondary support uses.

Samaritan Health Services is a not-for-profit network of five hospitals, 80 clinics and additional health service facilities that serve residents of the mid-Willamette Valley and central Oregon coast.

Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital

Location: Newport

Size: 126,000 square feet

Architect: The Neenan Company

General contractors: The Neenan Company and Gerding Builders

Construction start: May 2017

Anticipated completion: summer 2020

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