McCarthy Starts Construction on Grossmont Hospital

LA MESA, Calif. — St. Louis-headquartered McCarthy Building Companies Inc. began construction on the new 74,000-square-foot Heart and Vascular Center at Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, as well as an 18,400-square-foot energy plant that will reduce the facility’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Designed by San Francisco-based KMD Architects, the Heart and Vascular Center allows for expansion of the hospital’s existing surgery department and provides new multipurpose procedural rooms that can support specialties such as general surgery, minimally invasive surgery, image-guided surgery and endovascular interventional procedures. Upon completion, scheduled for March 2015, the facility will also feature a pharmacy, laboratory and covered walkway connection to the existing Women’s Center on Level A, as well as a new loading dock and materials management services area on Level B.
The approximately $26 million project incorporates shoring, foundations, structure and build-out of Levels A and B, and Level 1 will provide shell space to accommodate the construction of a catheterization lab and operating rooms.
“The new facility is being built on a tight site within a small footprint of the busy hospital campus, presenting access challenges for work crews, material and equipment,” said McCarthy Project Director Jason Mrozek in a statement. “We’ll also be creating tie-ins to the existing hospital, which will call for a carefully coordinated and closely managed construction schedule to minimize any disruption to campus operations.”
In addition to the Heart and Vascular Center, McCarthy is also in the process of building a new $46 million Central Energy Plant at the hospital. The three-story energy plant will incorporate electrical switchgear, emergency generators, cooling towers, chillers, fuel tanks, medical gas tanks and other medical equipment to accommodate future needs of the hospital.
A cogeneration combustion turbine generator will also be part of the project and will help save millions of dollars in energy costs, reducing the hospital’s greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent.
KPFF Consulting Engineers is serving as the structural and civil engineer on the project, Randall Lamb is the electrical and mechanical engineer, and Winner Yamada and Caughey is the landscape architect. All three have offices in the San Diego area.