Project Team
Owner: Novant Health/Presbyterian Healthcare System
Location: Charlotte.
Cost: $65 million
Contractor: Rodgers Builders, Charlotte
Architect: McCulloch England Associates Architects, Charlotte

The Presbyterian Women's Center Expansion Renovation Program on the campus of Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, N.C., included a 60,000-sq.-ft. vertical expansion atop an existing eight-story precast parking deck, a 20,000-sq.-ft. north wing addition above an existing two-story children's hospital and a 17,000-sq.-ft. adjoining connector bridge to the existing hospital.

The new Women's Center includes 39 postpartum beds, a newborn nursery, 16 labor-and-delivery rooms, three C-section rooms, 14 high-risk antepartum beds and various support spaces. Work on the seventh floor of the adjacent hospital included renovations that create a 38-position intensive-care unit and 20 new GYN beds.

Before any work could begin, Rodgers Builders needed to structurally retrofit an eight-level parking deck the company had built in 1991. Four concrete shear towers, each estimated to be the size of a parking space, were designed and built to stiffen the existing precast deck. Each of these shear towers sat on 16 minipiles, which were drilled into the basement level of the deck to bedrock below.

Vibration studies were conducted to monitor the impact of traffic movement at the finished patient floor. The four shear towers were designed to carry the majority of the patient floor load so that vibrations from the cars below would not migrate through to the Women's Center addition above.

The North Wing addition added 20,000 sq. ft. of patient floor at level seven, over an existing two-story children's hospital. The four floors of space in between were created as interstitial space. Additionally, the footprint of the building was expanded to add 7,000 sq. ft. to the original existing levels. All structural bracing and framing in the interstitial space, as well as the new floor, took place while the hospital was fully operational. More than 800 tons of structural steel were erected in this area.

Due to a lack of space at grade level, the tower crane had to be positioned inside one of the newly constructed shear towers in the parking deck. Also, a motorized scaffolding system was employed to install the skin on the exterior of the project. Use of this motorized system allowed the work of several trades to occur simultaneously on several levels of the building.

Extensive mockups were done of every type of room for owner and architect approval. Long lead items such as flooring were installed in an alternate area for early approval and durability testing.