This surgical suite renovation and expansion included a 20,000-sq-ft buildout of shell space to accommodate three electrophysiology cardiac catheterization labs, three general operating rooms, a hybrid operating room, a pre-operation/recovery space and eight post-anesthesia care unit bays—plus administrative offices. Moreover, the center’s existing operating rooms remained in use during construction, which challenged contractors to complete the expansion with surgical precision.

Calls and texts with questions and updates helped keep daily progress timelines on track and requests for information to a minimum. Additionally, open collaboration and technology helped the team value engineer solutions to keep project costs down, such as the replacement of unavailable materials and the use of laser scanning for preconstruction planning.

Photo by Slate & Stone Real Estate Photography

“This is the most technically challenging project that I have ever been a part of,” says Michael Hatton, vice president, facilities engineering and construction at Memorial Hermann Health System. There were “many firsts with this one, and it was delivered early.”

With the operating rooms on the center’s second level completed and ready to come on line, Kitchell overlaid a BIM model onto laser scanned images to plan and expedite the underfloor renovation work needed on the third level. This allowed the project team to quickly construct the removal of ceilings and install the infrastructure needed before disturbing the space.

“This forward planning allowed us to complete our above-ceiling work to allow the entire second floor of operating rooms to come on line several months sooner, as requested,” according to the project team.

The renovation and expansion logged over 45,000 working hours with zero lost-time accidents or recordable incidents.
Photo by Slate & Stone Real Estate Photography

Project safety was also handled with precision, with no lost time accidents or recordable incidents—a source of pride for the project builders that stems from what they call a “patient first” approach to working in an active care space.