Tonight Learn About Hospital's Plans For New 8-story Building To Be Constructed Over Two Years



Tonight from 6-8pm, the SAC (Standing Advisory Committee), made up of representatives of Children’s Hospital and surrounding neighborhoods, will hold its 19th meeting in the Ocean Café  of the hospital. 

The SAC advises the City and Children’s Hospital on issues related to the design and construction of new buildings and other projects under the City approved Children’s Hospital Major Institution Master Plan.

The main agenda item tonight is a presentation of plans for the new Building, named Forest B, of which construction will start next summer for about 2 years. 

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Public comment will be at 7pm. All SAC meetings are open to the public. 

Forest B will be located on the existing surface parking lot near the Emergency Room, at an angle to Building Hope, the newest structure.

Some options of design will be shared tonight.  The renderings and a site plan will be published shortly after on the Hospital Construction website.

The hospital is planning to submit a MUP application next month, then the SAC committee will review and discuss the information, discuss design guidelines and conditions and subsequently present those to the Seattle Department of Constructions and Inspections (SDCI).   Planning is scheduled to start in October, followed by a schedule of permitting deadlines. The scheduled opening of the new building is planned for the summer of 2021.
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Todd Johnson, Children's Hospital Vice President, Facilities and Supply Chain, told the Laurelhurst Blog Staff:

Forest B will be approximately 300,000 square feet (about the size of Forest A) and eight stories tall, within approved Major Institution Master Plan guidelines. During construction, we may add a temporary construction driveway on Sand Point Way.  Construction will generally be five days a week and there will be activity after hours. 

Forest B will be a diagnostic and therapeutic building designed to support the sickest children in our region and will also be home to 20 new cancer care beds (only new beds in the project) on the top floor under an approved certificate of need to the State of Washington (a formal process to gain approval for additional beds).  

The new building will also have a new outpatient clinic space for cancer and cardiac care; a new infusion center; new large, state-of-the-art operating rooms and support spaces; a clinical laboratory and inpatient pharmacy and a work space for physicians and others caring for patients in the building.   

There will be approximately 300 underground parking spaces.  The Hospital shuttles will move to the north end of the site.  The circulation of shuttles, bicycles, pedestrians and cars will be better separated.   

We will make deliberate connections to the bus stops and Burke Gilman Trail crosswalk.  We are working with Transpo Group to better understand how to optimize the flow of traffic on and around our campus.

There will be a landscaped plaza and circulation area in front of the new building.  Existing landscaping around the construction site will be preserved and/or replaced and enhanced. 

We intend to utilize the existing entrances/exits on 40^th Avenue NE and Sand Point Way and will continue to use the Penney Drive entrance as the primary means for entering and exiting.  The Phil Smart Way connector will remain in place. 

The hospital determined it needed additional facilities based on growing patient volumes, innovation-driven program growth (in areas such as immunotherapy and neurosciences), and the functional obsolescence of some of the oldest buildings on campus.  

We expect a certificate of occupancy in mid-2021.  We then will then commission building systems, clean, install furnishings and equipment, and complete staff training.  We should be ready to care for patients in late 2021 or early 2022.

Additionally, the Laurelhurst Community Club (LCC) published in a newsletter that the helistop will move to Building Hope temporarily and later will be located on the roof of the Forest B Building. And the Hartman Building, the brick one-story building, located directly across from the Hospital, will become an outpatient diabetic care facility with construction starting in early 2018 and completion in 2020-21. 

The Hospital currently has 373 beds, of which most of are being renovated and changed into new NICU beds.  When Forest B is complete, the Hospital will have a total of beds.