Start 15: Community North Hospital Expansion
Cost: $170 million

Construction began in November on a project designed to double the size of the existing Community North Hospital in Indianapolis.

The project will add a six-story hospital tower, five-story medical office building and six-story parking garage.

The 850,000-sq.-ft. expansion will include "next generation" surgical suites - designed to accommodate robotics and emerging imaging - microscopy, light control and infection control technologies and specialty "mothers and babies hospital" to the facility, reportedly creating the largest maternity unit of its kind in the nation.

Phased Schedule

Phased completion will bring a new entry area, new outpatient areas and the new garage into service in the middle of 2006, followed later in the year by the office building, which will connect to the existing hospital structure at each floor.

The hospital tower and the new maternity area will open in early 2007.

Renovations will be done on 130,000 sq. ft. of existing space as departments move to their new homes.

International design firm RTKL Associates Inc. is the architect, and Indianapolis-based BSA LifeStructures is providing engineering. Employee input was included in the project's design.

Bob Crowder, senior project manager for Louisville, Ky.-based Summit Construction, the general contractor, said that an aggressive schedule on the six-story hospital tower is likely to present the project's greatest concerns.

"There are a lot of different pieces to this project that have to be fitted together," he said. "But the tower is the centerpiece and is going to be the toughest part."

He added that the other segments of the project would not have the schedule restraints of the tower portion.

He said that keeping the hospital open for business while work is going on will be a complex task.

"We have to maintain traffic flow through portions of the hospital that are going to be demolished," Crowder said.

The solution was found in the creation of structural walkways that allow people to pass safely while demolition and construction goes on above. In addition, temporary partitions have been put in place to isolate renovations from hospital activities.

As of mid-April, the concrete foundation was going in and structural steel had been ordered.

Return to Top of 2005 list