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Springfield Clinic Sixth Street expansion
Project Summary
Working with BSA LifeStructures of Chicago and Indianapolis, Hanson helped design a 117,000-square-foot four-story structural-steel-framed building with a partial basement for Springfield Clinic LLP, one of the 10 largest employers in Springfield. With no room to expand on its original site on the east side of Sixth Street in downtown Springfield, the clinic purchased land located on the west side of Sixth Street.
Because the expansion straddles Sixth Street, a major four-lane thoroughfare, the project team faced several major challenges: to minimize traffic disruptions to thousands of motorists who daily travel the major thoroughfare that split the new building site from the existing facility and to avoid disruptions to the clinic’s patients and staff.
The team also worked under a tight time constraint of 21 months from design to completion. Working with a $30.6 million construction budget, structural engineers used Building Information Modeling system to develop the framework for the expansion, incorporating structural steel into the facility’s design. This approach allowed the project team to forge ahead with design, fabrication and construction to meet the client’s required time frame for opening its new complex in August 2008. Engineers quickly accomplished the design and placed a steel mill order only six weeks after the structural design began.
The centerpiece of the facility’s design, a 15,000-square-foot, three-story air-rights office area that spans Springfield’s busy four-lane Sixth Street, connects the new expansion to the clinic’s original facility. Structural engineers selected composite bar joists for the structural system to protect the building against a disproportionate collapse if a vehicle impact occurred. They also offered a relatively simple erection sequence that minimized the disruption to motorists traveling through the construction zone into downtown Springfield. In addition, engineers designed the long-span structure to minimize the impact of vibration frequency and amplitude on the clinic’s exam and waiting rooms located on the bridge structure.
The Hanson team met the many challenges of this project, from the vertical and horizontal design and site considerations to the needs of the clinic to provide essential medical services, including operating its MRI and nuclear medicine facility, throughout the construction project. Enduring an intensive schedule, the Springfield Clinic project team completed this major medical complex for Springfield Clinic on schedule.