Children's Hospital Construction Activity This Week

Children's Hospital has begun construction activity in preparation for the new Building Care, Forest B, Phase 2 of the expansion, planned to open in Spring of 2021.

The 310,000 square-foot addition will add an eight-story building and will includes diagnostic and treatment facilities, primarily out-patient cancer and others) labs, new state-of-the-art operating rooms, 20 inpatient beds, and a lobby. There will be two floors of underground parking and sterile processing. This will bring SCH bed total to 409, up from 200 before its expansion 2012 plan.

The helicopter landing pad has already moved temporarily to the roof of Forest A (176’), now known as Friends of Costco Building, Phase 1 of the expansion. The landing pad will be active for the next four years, until Building Care is completed Noise is expected to be louder than the former ground-based helipad. When Forest B is complete, the helistop will moves to its permanent location on top of the Friends of Costco Building (same height). 

Todd Johnson, Children's Hospital Vice President, Facilities and Supply Chain, told the Laurelhurst Blog Staff, last year:

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.

The Hospital posted this information on their Construction Blog about specific construction activity this week:

Construction crews are scheduled to perform the following activities:

• Set up site office conference trailer; build deck and stairs
• Excavate, form and pour trench drains
• Install cladding on ED canopy
• Demolish existing concrete stairs, footings and the old helipad
• Utilities: pull electrical wire; install conduits; install stormwater and water lines; remove existing catch basins and pipes
• Excavate for new stair footings
• Patch asphalt
• Backfill excavated areas
• Install waterproofing on new stairs
• Install concrete rip rap

Construction noise will be generated and the noisiest work will be the demolition, which is scheduled through Thursday. All work will take place within standard construction hours: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday, and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday.