RGTV — $60M Hauenstein Center aims to create new national health care model

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

The $60 million Hauenstein Center at Saint Mary’s Healthcare in Grand Rapids—the first neurological center in the country to provide inpatient and outpatient services, care and research under one roof—is well on its way to a winter 2009 completion.

Partnerships with the Van Andel Institute and the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine promise to make the Hauenstein Center a premier research destination for patients suffering from neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, stroke, epilepsy and spine disorders.

To date, construction crews have enclosed the four-story, 140,000-square-foot facility on Cherry Street at Jefferson Avenue, and installed drywall, flooring, ceilings and cabinets on the first and second floors. The main floor, which has an entryway off Cherry, features a clinic and physicians’ offices; the second floor has 32 of the total 66 patient beds.

A neurological emergency department is on the third floor, but actually opens onto Jefferson at ground level. The rest of the third and fourth floors have the remaining patient beds and clinicians’ stations.

Each patient room features a state-of-the-art “head wall” which puts electrical connections, emergency power, oxygen, communications and more within easy reach at the head of each patient’s bed. Rooms on the south side of the facility will overlook the emergency department’s green roof.

“We’re shooting for silver LEED,” says Mark Bradburn of Wolverine Construction Management. “We’ve recycled about 92 percent of our waste. We’re running about 150 workers a day on the building and 50 on the parking ramp.”

The attached seven-level ramp provides parking for 554 vehicles.

After construction wraps up on the medical building and ramp, work begins on a 200-foot-long elevated walkway connecting the Hauenstein Center and the main hospital building.

Source: Mark Bradburn, Wolverine Construction Management

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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.