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MUSC puts planning at forefront of new hospital
Charleston
Regional Business Journal 9/22/2003
MUSC puts
planning at forefront of new hospital
By
Holly Fisher
Contributing Writer
As
chief facilities officer at the Medical University of South Carolina, John
Malmrose wants to have a plan in place before he starts building a new hospital
on campus. Because a new medical building’s design can change, planning is key,
so relying on the concept that allows contractors to design as they build just
doesn’t make sense to him.
While Malmrose admits he isn’t an
expert on the subject, he feels strongly that design/build is not a trend MUSC
is ready to follow just yet. “We change our minds too much,” he explains. In
addition, while in theory design/build allows for faster construction, Malmrose
isn’t comfortable scaling back the pre-planning stage.
“Once you start that stagecoach, it’s
running,” he says. “We can erase lines easier than we can dig new holes.”
That’s why MUSC officials have put a
great deal of time and thought into plans for its $142 million clinical
expansion. When a 1998 campus master plan revealed MUSC would have to add
buildings and, in fact, could double its square footage within its existing
boundaries, a more detailed study of the university’s clinical facilities was
launched.
In 2001, NBBJ Architects and health
care strategists Kurt Salmon Associates joined with a steering committee of
MUSC and VA Hospital representatives and in fall 2002 presented a report
showing that it would be difficult for MUSC to sustain long-term work with its
current facilities. With South Carolina’s population growing and placing a
greater demand on MUSC facilities, the hospital would have to grow—preferably
on the Charleston peninsula, the report stated.
To afford the buildings designated for
its expansion, MUSC has elected to phase its plans, with the first phase
calling for another hospital that will add 156 beds as well as expanded
procedure-based services such as cardiovascular and digestive disease offices.
This new hospital will be located
between Charleston Memorial Hospital and the MUSC Wellness Center. Once
completed, Charleston Memorial will be decommissioned as a hospital as its
license capacity is transferred to the new building. The two south wings of the
Wellness Center will be demolished and the student service offices relocated.
Also constructed during Phase 1 will be
a 1,500-space parking garage and energy plant that will be equipped to serve
all phases of the project. The garage will be located at the corner of
Courtenay Drive and Cannon Street. Also, in Phase 1 Doughty Street will be
relocated slightly to the north.
The entire project will line Courtenay
Drive, and Chris Malanuk, director of strategic planning for the MUSC Medical
Center, says MUSC hopes to work with the VA Hospital to rebuild facilities and
create an entire clinical area.
The 560,000-square-foot hospital will
be a state-of-the-art facility with the two pieces of the hospital complex—one
side the bed tower and the other offices and surgery rooms—connected with a
conservatory. The bed tower will reach to seven levels; the other side will
have only four levels with the fifth level being rooftop mechanical space. The
seventh level will house faculty offices, which could be reconfigured to bed
spaces later if needed, Malanuk explains.
This project is significant for MUSC,
says Hal Currey, administrator for facilities and capital improvements for the
Medical University Hospital Authority. Even the current expansions of the
Hollings Cancer Center and the Children’s Research Hospital don’t come close to
matching the size and scope of this new hospital, he notes.
With the $142 million construction
price tag and then another $60 million for furnishings, Currey says it’s the
biggest project ever granted a Department of Health and Environmental Control
certificate of need in the history of the state.
Funding for this massive undertaking is
through a loan guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development via a hospital mortgage insurance program. The HUD backing allows
MUSC to secure a lower interest rate.
“It’s like having a really great
co-signer,” says Currey.
BGKS LLC is the construction group
handling the various contracts for the expansion. The team, which takes the
place of a general contractor, is made up of Brasfield & Gorrie, M. B. Kahn
Construction and Southern Management.
MUSC soon will hire a program manager
to oversee the entire project. According to Malmrose, it’s just too large a
project for the MUSC facilities staff to take on without hiring additional
employees.
The project would be contracted out to
a program manager that has experience working with HUD because there are no
program managers in Charleston, Malmrose says. According to Currey, a request
for proposal is to go out this month seeking a program manager.
Next to be completed are the
developmental drawings, which provide more detail on the mechanical and
electrical aspects of the project. Then the construction drawings outlining the
final details and size of the building can be finished.
The construction manager and the
architect will develop the packages for bidding; the project will require several
contracts. Demolition of the two Wellness Center wings will begin in April 2004
and construction is slated to begin in July. The target completion date is
January 2007.
As for when the other four phases can
begin—it all depends on money. “We’ll start the other phases as soon as we can
afford it,” Malanuk says. “I guess by 2010 we’ll be planning Phase 2, but
that’s just a guess.”
The total impact of such a massive
project is difficult to calculate, but MUSC officials predict it will be a boon
for Charleston, particularly in providing more jobs.
“We just don’t know what impact this
will have, although there will certainly be an economic impact with 1,000 to
1,200 new employees needed [for] the new beds plus employee needs with the
construction,” Currey says.
MUSC,
USC and Clemson combine to establish Center for Regenerative Medicine
Late last month, the
Medical University of South Carolina, University of South Carolina and Clemson
University were awarded $6 million in 2004 lottery proceeds to set up a Center
for Regenerative Medicine.
Approval for the funding
was proposed by the presidents of MUSC, USC and Clemson (Drs. Ray Greenberg,
Andrew Sorensen and James Barker) on Aug. 25 at a meeting of the Oversight
Board for the S.C. Centers of Economic Excellence and it was unanimously
approved. The proposal received high scores in the last round of competition,
but was deferred until the three presidents could develop a joint fundraising
strategy for the matching monies. The three presidents have indicated that this
proposal will receive their highest level of support in fundraising and they
have developed plans to jointly approach potential partners to request matching
funds.
Regenerative medicine has
been identified by the National Institutes of Health and the scientific
community as one of the fastest growing frontier areas in biomedical technology
with impressive potential to have impact upon human lives. Also known as tissue
engineering, the science is involved with the remodeling of tissues and organs
for the purpose of repairing, replacing, maintaining or enhancing organ
function as well as the engineering and growing of functional tissue
substitutes to serve as biological replacement for damaged or diseased tissues
and organs.
“Our vision and long-term
goal for the center is to combine and expand the existing statewide expertise
in developmental biology, adult stem cell technology, and bioengineering into a
center focused on regenerative medicine that would address major health
concerns in South Carolina and the nation,” said Dr. Roger Markwald, project
director and chair of the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy at MUSC.
The initial emphasis will
be on cardiovascular diseases, both in the newborn and adult populations,
because South Carolina leads the entire nation in heart and vascular diseases.
Merely living in South Carolina, whether an individual was born here or has
relocated here, reduces life expectancy by two years.
The regenerative medicine
center will have the potential to change the way medicine is practiced, and in
doing so, create growth industries that would develop to implement the
potential of engineering new tissues and organs. The Regenerative Medicine
Center will be unique to South Carolina and the region. It will provide
opportunity to train graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and clinical
research fellows in this major breakthrough for medical practice and attract
companies looking to invest in health related research.
The center could evolve
into an economically viable entity as a statewide repository for stem cells or
a source of biomaterials or biologically developed tissue substitutes that
attract new biotech firms or venture capitalists.
The three South Carolina
research universities that will participate in the center already have
strengths in regenerative medicine and bioengineering supported by extramural
grants exceeding $60 million.
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