Texas Children’s Hospital and its family of medical facilities at Houston’s Texas Medical Center are welcoming a new addition. The Pavilion for Women is a $575-million facility that will bring maternity and neonatal care capabilities to the hospital. Taking the pavilion from conception to birth is the most ambitious construction project in the hospital’s history and the centerpiece of its $1.5-billion Vision 2010 expansion program.

The 796,000-sq-ft, 90-bed facility combines an architecturally challenging design, a two-story signature pedestrian bridge that crosses a street and rapid transit line and one of the deepest excavations ever done at the Texas Medical Center complex.

An aggressive schedule added to the challenge, says Jill Pearsall, director of facilities, planning and development at Texas Children’s, one of the largest children’s hospitals in the U.S. The project broke ground in January 2008, topped out in June 2010 and will turn over the outpatient services portion of the structure this fall and the tower early in 2012. Construction costs have totaled $370 million.

“This size building, in a dense urban environment, in the four-year time frame we had to build it, is an amazing feat,” she says.

 

View Article