Martha Jefferson Hospital Charlottesville, Va.

PROJECT COST: $30 million

Mortenson Construction of Milwaukee began construction in July on the $275-million replacement Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville.

“The project vision was to set the standard for clinical quality and personal health care in the community,” says Al Krueger, project principal with architect Kahler Slater of Milwaukee.

Kahler Slater designed the 176-bed, 452,710-sq-ft, six-level, hospital into the site’s topography, minimizing its massing and avoiding extended sitework that would have been necessary to create a level parcel. Elevation on the site varies by approximately 100 ft.

A loading dock, back-of-house and support facilities – including the laboratory, pharmacy and food-service kitchen – are located below grade. The next level consolidates operating suites, cardiac catheterization laboratories, procedure rooms and clinical spaces requiring large floor plans but minimal natural light. The upper floors rise out of the hill. The project includes a 67,290-sq-ft medical office building.

The building is designed for to achieve LEED certification. The project team employed four-dimensional building information modeling, with the additional element of time, to eliminate coordination problems in the field.

The structural-steel building with concrete shear core sits on a cast-in-place concrete foundation and will sport a brick, stone, cement board siding and glass and aluminum curtain-wall exterior. Crews moved more than 500,000 cu yd of dirt and removed 100,000 cu yd of rock. The project will consume 2,400 tons of steel. Completion is scheduled for 2012.

Key Players

Owner: Martha Jefferson Hospital, Charlottesville, Va.
Contractor: Mortenson Construction, Milwaukee
Architect: Kahler Slater, Milwaukee