VCU Adult Ambulatory Care Facility

OWNER

Virginia Commonwealth University

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Construction Cost
$300 million

Project Size
560,000 SF

VCU Adult Ambulatory Care Facility

Richmond
Virginia

Virginia Commonwealth University is continuing to modernize its urban medical campus with a new ambulatory care facility and parking structure. The project replaces an aging adult outpatient facility and will integrate clinic spaces with VCU’s noted Massey Cancer Center. 

In late 2017, we responded to impending new steel tariffs by shortening the already accelerated structural design process by an additional four months to allow purchase of structural steel before the tariffs went into effect. This aggressive strategy required our team to deliver steel procurement packages before the rest of the design team even produced schematic design packages. We leveraged our digital workflows to dynamically link design inputs with construction deliverables, saving the owner over $600,000 in construction costs.

In late 2018, a physicist’s report on the leading-edge linear accelerator equipment determined that the thickness of concrete shielding around the accelerator had to be doubled. We consulted shielding solutions experts to develop several options to safely house the sensitive equipment, which was located on the second level of the hospital. While the contractor priced out options, our team redesigned the foundations in that area to support any option, allowing construction to proceed even as crucial shielding decisions were finalized.

The hospital’s downtown location challenged our parking and traffic teams to ensure safe, quick, and convenient access. Our team utilized the grade changes across the site to provide two entrance levels and maximize on-site queuing space thus minimizing impacts to the busy adjacent streets. We used “dwell time” data from other VCU valet facilities to inform our VISSIM software analysis, which allowed us to determine the best solutions to meet VCU’s level of service expectations.