St. Joseph's Mission Hospital Completes Tower Expansion

Mission Hospital completed its $153 million Patient Care Tower in Mission Viejo, Calif., in November of 2009. The four-level patient tower features a patient-centered design and next-generation advancements in healthcare technology and seismic building safety. Designed by RBB Architects of Los Angeles, the new Patient Care Tower features private rooms and an expanded family area. McCarthy Building Companies served as general contractor for the new tower as well as an underground tunnel and a 175-foot-long pedestrian bridge that connects the new facility with the main hospital building on the third floor. Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology was used to deliver the complex healthcare facility. The design and construction team created virtual 3-D mock-ups of the complex, above-ceiling utilities, in-wall coordination for high congestion areas and on the tower’s unique building exterior in which structural members were located outside the envelope of the exterior skin. This enabled the team to resolve system clashes before construction began. As a result, 125,000-sf of MEP work was coordinated nearly twice as fast as using traditional 2D coordination. Costly change orders on construction of the building exterior were also avoided. The project was awarded the Gold Constructech Vision Award for the project’s use of a high level of BIM detail modeling for the exterior skin of the building. Mission Hospital is part of St. Joseph Health System.