Making the Case to Construct a Replacement Facility

The Problem

After consolidating all of the inpatient beds from this smaller hospital to their hub, leadership was challenged with planning the future of their now ambulatory center located in an 1920’s inpatient chassis with several subsequent facility additions. The most recent addition expanded surgical services and added other functions on both levels of the building, a significant investment.

The Approach

The main question was whether to rejuvenate and reuse the vacant space in the hospital for ambulatory services or to construct a right-sized outpatient replacement facility. Despite the objective to create a modern patient care environment through rejuvenation and re-organization, renovating the existing campus would leave significant waste in operational processes, require notable infrastructure capital investment, and not occupy an efficient footprint. Catalyst’s planning team studied various solutions of renovation, demolition, and additions, as well as a replacement facility.

The Solution

Due to the combined cost of infrastructure improvements and capital required to convert the existing facility into a modern ambulatory facility, a replacement facility was justified. While the initial first cost was slightly higher, Catalyst found significant long term operational savings with an on campus replacement strategy. Catalyst’s planning team created a conceptual space program based on national benchmarks and information specific to the campus in order to generate block diagrams, massing model, pricing and renderings.