On Friday’s cold and windy afternoon, Fort Riley broke ground — symbolically, due to the weather — on its new 500,000 square-feet Irwin Army Community Hospital, a project for which $404 million already has been allocated for design and construction.
The ground-breaking ceremony took place inside the current Warrior Transition Battalion Complex, a building referred to as “The Clamshell.” Seven men, five in Army fatigues and two in suits, all wore hard hats and sat on a stage. Behind them, an American flag stretched nearly from the floor to the ceiling.
“This will take us from having the Army’s oldest hospital to having the Army’s newest hospital,” said Maj. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, Commanding General, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley. “And that is quite an honor and a privilege for us to be witnesses to such a change and have that benefit provided for those who serve right now.”
He congratulated the Kansas City, Mo., District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the designers Leo A. Daily and the firm of Roger, Lovelock and Fritz and the construction team of Balfour-Walton. Brooks said the new hospital would be a place where true care can occur through the designing of this organization.
“It’s a smart design,” Brooks said. “I’ve been briefed on it. It makes very good sense in terms of how it’s laid out, so it’s not just a building.”
Col. Jeffrey J. Johnson, Commander, Irwin Army Community Hospital, Fort Riley, said the main need the new facility will fulfill is having the capacity to meet the demands of the number of soldiers. He said the hospital staff has seen almost a 20,000-member increase in patients, which is why the facility’s size needs to be increased so soldiers and their family members can have the care they deserve.
Jon Cranmer, facility manager of the hospital, said this new hospital would be a model for other installations and another stepping stone for Army medicine to provide great health care. He said the building would have more automation and be more technologically advanced.
“It’s going to be a much brighter, cheerier environment,” Cranmer said.
He said the improved environment should help patients recover and make the hospital a much nicer place to work.
Johnson said constructing a new building will allow the hospital staff to structure spaces to meet the exact uses for how the Army implements medical procedures in the 21st century. Instead of having rehabilitated spaces, Johnson said the hospital now has the ability to carve and use open spaces, healing gardens and water therapy to help move patients from illness toward wellness.
Johnson also stressed that the men and women who provide care must also be taken care of, so the new facility will provide places for them to relax and be able to reflect on what they are doing on a day-to-day basis.
“$404 million covers design and construction,” said Lt. Col. Stephen Wooldridge, Incoming Commander of U.S. Army Health Facility Planning Agency. “The furnishing and equipment will come from a different pot of money. [We have] planning and design dollars, construction dollars [and] initial outfitting and transition dollars.”
Congress provided funding for the project in September 2008.
Wooldridge said the construction contractor was hired early during the design so the group could influence the hospital’s constructability and help the Army compress the design.
“So you’re going to have the designer proceeding, and you have the builder on board at the same time,” Wooldridge said. “They’re sort of moving concurrently, so as soon as the footprint’s established, they’ll start ordering materials so they can start the site work even if they haven’t fully completed design, which is fairly innovative for government.”
Johnson said the facility will be located on what formerly was a ball field about half a mile away from the current hospital. He said the new hospital will be built there to integrate it with the Warrior Transition Battalion to form a medical campus.
Col. Roger A. Wilson Jr., Commander, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City District, said the engineers believe this facility, which is scheduled to open in early 2013, is the largest single piece of infrastructure built by the Kansas City district in its 103-year history.
Brooks said the funding for this project is an indication of the future value of Fort Riley and a commitment that Fort Riley will have enduring value to the nation.
All Army construction must meet the environmental requirements of silver criteria in the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system, according to a press release by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Kansas City District. To reach the silver criteria, the hospital must score between 50 and 59 points out of 100 possible as scored by the LEED system.
“The hospital incorporates the latest in sustainability concepts, combining modern technologies and common sense to provide a more energy-efficient, greener facility to most effectively utilize our precious resources,” Wilson said.
The categories in which projects can score points include sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality and LEED innovation credits.
Cranmer said meeting the environmental restrictions makes building the hospital a little more expensive and more challenging to do, but the end result is well worth it.
“We’re doing things like reutilizing materials, so we’re not using things like virgin lumber or virgin steel,” Cranmer said. “We’re using recycled materials. In addition to that, for the heating and air conditioning and the utility systems ... we’re paying close attention to those systems that will provide good energy-efficiency, so that we’re just being good stewards of the environment.”
Maj. David Zajac, Program Manager, Heath Facility Planning Agency, said since the front facade of the hospital is all windows, this maximum penetration of natural light qualifies as a LEED innovation credit. Zajac said the indoor environmental quality will be improved by the conditioning aspects. He also said resources within a 500-mile radius are going to be used to build the facility as much as possible, which will stimulate the local economy and reduce the carbon footprint.
Zajac said the building should be roughly 500,000 square feet, comparable to the size of the old facility.
“It’s about equal scope,” he said. “And the reason why that’s good is that shows that we’re still being efficient.”
Col. Kevin P. Brown, Garrison Commander, Fort Riley, said the health care offered at the new hospital will be limited to active duty and retired military personnel, their families and their survivors, but will still affect the Flint Hills region economically.
“Greater demand in sectors like labor, building supplies and materials will take this $404 million project and create a half-a-billion-dollar input into the local community,” Brown said.
Wilson also said the project would supply a multitude of job opportunities as the economy rebounds from recession.
Johnson said the most important effect would not be on the economy but on the makeup of the community. He said the staff at the new hospital will total about 1,600 employees. Only about 350 of them will be military personnel, meaning 1,300 medical professionals would move in and reside in the surrounding communities along with their families, he said.
“They’re the coaches, they’re the teachers, they’re the small-businessmen that will continue to have that stabilizing impact for the Central Flint Hills area,” Johnson said.
Hello!!!! your first paragraph contradicts the headline!!!
there is a HUGE difference between a "$404" hospital and a "$404 million" hospital!!!
You dont even do a bad enough job to be considered bad!!! WAKE UP!!!!