Growing Commitment in Health Care

University of Miami's School of Medicine in Midst of $1 Billion Construction Plan

By Debra Wood

The University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine's aggressive $1 billion, 10-year construction plan has hit its stride, with the Clinical Research Institute Building nearing completion, foundation work under way on a wet lab facility and a hospital in design.

"We have a growing need for clinical research space," said Ronald Bogue, assistant vice president of facilities and support services for the Miller School. "Translational research, that is taking experimental drugs to the marketplace through clinical research and drug development companies, is growing tremendously in the country and at our school of medicine."

Perkins & Will of Miami and Atlanta designed the 900,000-sq.-ft., $90 million total cost clinical research project. It includes a 15-story, 340,000-sq.-ft. tower, with 50-ft. free spans and a sidesaddle core facing an 11-story parking garage for more than 1,400 cars; and a two-story, 60,000-sq.-ft. wellness center atop the parking facility.

"We felt it was important that the building be expressive with a look of innovation and modernity," said Manuel Cadrecha, design principal "It became an opportunity for the university medical center to make a statement toward its commitment to the city."

Construction manager Bovis Lend Lease of Miami broke ground in April 2004, topped out in April 2005, was more than 85 percent complete in January and will finish in May.

The project sits on a concrete footer foundation with about 800 auger-cast piles. The tight site, bordered on two sides by highways, required dewatering.

advertisement

"With some of those deep footers, the water started coming out like a geyser," said Luis Garcia-Huidobro, project manager for Bovis.

The tower was constructed using a precast joist system with cast-in-place concrete slabs on top of the joists. Crews poured 17,000 cu. yds. of concrete and used 4.7 million lbs. of reinforcing steel for the structure.

A unitized curtain wall facade with tinted vision and opaque spandrel glass, which gives an opalescent look, graces the exterior. The building withstood Hurricane Wilma without losing any glass.

Strong verticals take the eye toward the sky, with a crown motif at the top of the building.

"The glass is colorful and expressive of Miami, and it has a fresh look," Cadrecha said about the appearance changes throughout the day. "When the sun's hitting, it has a bright look, and at other times, it has a dramatic, rich, light-bronze look. It has a chameleon effect."

Inside, four core floors will contain exam, observation and group-session rooms. The balance of the floors will house administrative and support services. Bovis will build the shell but is not contracted to complete the interiors.

Perkins & Will designed the interior for flexibility and maximum efficiency. It will contain a modular wall system and a pressurized, raised-flooring system on levels three through 15.

"We can rapidly adapt to clinicians' changes in regard to grants," said Bogue, explaining that grants typically run three to five years before the researcher moves on to the next project. "It's going to reduce our cost for those changes."

Air-conditioning and electrical connections can quickly be modified. In addition, letting the cool air rise from the floor represents a more sustainable design than pushing it down from above, Cadrecha said.

"All you have to do is remove square planks that make the raised floor, and you can reroute the electrical," Garcia-Huidobro said. "You won't see any wires. Everything comes from the floor. And you don't destroy anything to move it."

The precast/prestressed concrete parking garage is built with columns, 62-ft. double Ts and spandrel panels. Allen Witt, vice president and sales manager of Coreslab of Miami, reported it was the tallest precast parking garage built by the company in Florida.

"It's tall for precast," Garcia-Huidobro said. "It was put together like a LEGO, welding pieces together and vaulting."

The garage contains 1,728 pieces of precast and is designed to handle hurricane wind speeds. The garage has four stair towers, with precast walls and metal stairs, and three elevators. The exterior was painted and is partially covered with ornamental grilles.

The wellness center, sitting atop the garage, has a structural-steel frame, with concrete-on-metal decking. Perkins & Will chose structural steel to lighten the load carried by the foundations, to have separate trades handle different sections of the building and for flexibility with the mechanical and electrical systems, said George Valcarcel, project manager for Perkins & Will.

"We had to design the garage to handle the loads of the wellness center structure, which were very large," Witt said. "The key thing that made it the most difficult was blending the two [structural systems]. When you build something that tall out of precast and then you start with a different system, your tolerances have to be really tight to align that thing. You can image keeping everything plumbed at those heights."

Garcia-Huidobro added, "Probably the biggest challenge was reaching so high to erect [the steel] on top of the precast garage. We had to go all the way up and walk away from the site. We couldn't do it going horizontal, a bit at a time, because the pieces were too heavy for the tower crane to manage.

"So we had to go by sections all the way up and advance toward the north. Every single section that went up had to have the strength to be stable during construction."

Bovis laterally supported the structure during construction with X cables, and some welds and precast members on the bottom. A ninth-floor, structural-steel sky bridge connects the research building with the wellness center.

Also under way at the Miller School is a $70 million, 200,000-sq.-ft., 10-story, concrete wet laboratory for basic-science research. It is being built by Moss of Miami and will contain two floors for animal studies and eight floors with long sinks, gas and other items needed for bench science experiments.

Crews were placing auger piles in January. Completion is scheduled for summer 2007.

The University of Miami also plans to erect a $320 million medical practice building and replacement hospital, being designed by Perkins & Will. The university will bring clinics now in a variety of locations to this central campus.

The plan calls for three or four floors for medical offices and two bed towers, with operating suites and intensive care units. Finally, the school plans to add two more on-campus wet lab buildings.

Useful Sources:

University of Miami
http://www.miami.edu/ummedicine-magazine/fstory5.html
http://www.miami.edu/scrip/summer2005/story05.html

Team Box:
Owner: University of Miami, Miami
Architect: Perkins & Will, Miami and Atlanta
Structural Engineer: Donnell, Duquesne & Albaisa, Miami
Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing Engineer: Tilden Lobnitz Cooper, Miami
Concrete: Turnkey Construction Co. Inc. of Miami and Florida Lemark Corp., Miami
Precast: Coreslab Structures, Medley, Fla., PCI
Structural Steel: Steel Fabricators LLC, Fort Lauderdale
Curtain wall: Glassalum International Corp., Miami
Electrical: Elcon Electric, Miami
Mechanical and Plumbing: A & M Mechanical Contractors, Miami
Fire Protection: Arfran II Inc., Doral, Fla.
EMS/Controls: Cyrus Technologies Inc., Fort Lauderdale