Robert Levine tells Grayson Walker about the healthcare construction boom and how his company is rising to the task.

Hospital building projects are sought after by construction firms large and small, but today’s healthcare building environment is especially lucrative, as Turner Construction Co. can attest.

Robert Levine

However, Robert Levine, senior vice president and manager of the healthcare market segment at Turner, said the percentage of work that consists of new hospital construction has increased dramatically over the past several years. “Up to 2000, we did three to five replacement hospitals per year,” Levine said. “Today, we’re doing the same number of projects overall, but a third of them are replacement hospitals.

“There’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a 21st century hospital,” Levine said. “With a clean palette, communities can build integrated, digital hospitals to deliver medicine in a new way.”

Easing the strain
Levine draws on four decades of experience in the healthcare construction field when he cites five reasons for the current boom in new hospital construction. The first is obsolescence among facilities built in the wake of the Hill-Burton Act, a federal law passed in 1946 designed to upgrade the country’s hospital infrastructure. Many facilities built during this time are aging and in need of replacement. The consolidation of campuses also can bring new construction, he added.

Aging baby boomers and their increased need for healthcare also are spurring the trend. “Some areas are totally underbedded, causing a tremendous strain on the healthcare system,” Levine said. Increased use of technology also brings changes as hospitals realize that many 21st century diagnostic and treatment tools don’t fit in buildings constructed a half-century ago.

The fourth reason is changing demographics in many communities and the need to locate facilities near where people now live. Levine cites the PeaceHealth hospital Turner Construction is building in Springfield, Ore. The $300 million project is a little over five miles from the current hospital in Eugene, which will be upgraded and serve a supplementary role to the new main campus when it opens next year.

Finally, reasonably friendly financing and reimbursement rates for hospitals are contributing to the building boom, Levine said. Private financing, which is occurring in the UK and Canada, is attracting attention in the US. In this scenario, a hospital is built with private funds and then leased by the hospital for a set period of time.

Ten firms responded to a request for proposals to build a privately funded hospital for the Louisiana State University Medical Center, but state politicians were cool to the idea, Levine said. “There’s no reason hospitals need to be in the building business,” he said. “They’re in the care business.”

Reputation for integrity
Turner Construction, which has its corporate headquarters in New York, was founded in 1902 by Henry Turner and quickly built a reputation for integrity, teamwork, and commitment. Turner referred to his clients as “respected friends,” a philosophy the company still espouses. The company has a nationwide network of offices and a presence in a dozen countries, offering a range of services, including preconstruction consulting, program management, project management, construction management, design-build, design-build/finance, general construction, building maintenance, multiple building program, and logistics.

Hospital projects are becoming more expensive, not because of material costs, but because of the need to create flexible space and environments that promote healing, Levine said. Spaces between columns are a more uniform 30 feet, which can better accommodate new technology, and all corridors are eight feet wide to handle potential reuse of space from an employee corridor, which requires less space, to a patient passageway. Large private rooms are the most noticeable aspect of the environment of healing that pervades many hospitals. Other touches include natural light, healing gardens, better signage, and in-room computer stations for patients and families.

While all of these features are great, they also are more expensive and have helped push construction costs from $180 to $225 per square foot five years ago to $300 per square foot in most areas today. Levine said that costs in California run $600 to $700 per square foot.

As building costs continue to escalate, Turner Construction’s value proposition becomes even more important. The company can be involved in nearly every aspect of the process, from planning to insurance, equipment purchasing, and building maintenance. Turner Casualty & Surety offers favorable insurance rates to clients and a way to resolve risk management issues, helping them move forward with their respective projects. Turner Logistics helps clients leverage Turner’s purchasing power, since the company buys direct from manufacturers and receives preferred pricing, service, and improved delivery timing.

The company also offers 3D modeling that allows various blueprints to be scanned and overlaid in one document to look for potential clashes in the virtual world instead of on the job site. “We’re doing clashes with six hospitals right now, and I’ve been told that one of them had 1,000 clashes, which would have been 1,000 change orders,” Levine said. “Taking care of those before construction started took three months out of one job.”

“Green” building takes on deeper meaning in the healthcare arena, and Turner has taken a leadership role, completing or contracting for nearly 200 projects with green building elements. In each of the past two years, Turner has doubled its number of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) accredited professionals and now employs more than 220 of them.

Levine, who started in the construction business right out of college and has been with Turner for a quarter century, said he’s never seen a construction boom like what’s occurring in the healthcare field. “I’d say we’re in the midst of rebuilding the hospital infrastructure from the ground up,” Levine said. “We do see a slowdown in the growth we’ve been experiencing, but it will plateau at a very high level. The industry is expected to do $25 billion in projects in 2007, and that number used to be $15 billion.” E

Grayson Walker, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , is a freelance writer based in Atlanta.