McCarthy Breaks Ground on Texas Specialty Care Center

LEAGUE CITY, Texas — An official groundbreaking for The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) Victory Lakes Specialty Care Center expansion project in League City was held on Feb. 26, the day after construction began. The $90 million design-build project will add 142,000 square feet to the existing outpatient center on the Victory Lakes campus, as well as include a related utilities facility.

The center’s ambulatory surgery and complex diagnostic services will expand to provide 39 inpatient beds for up to 72-hour stays, 17 urgent care treatment rooms, four operating rooms, endoscopy rooms and 25,000 square feet of shell space for future development. In addition, the finished site will provide increased imaging capabilities including an X-ray fluoroscopy facility, ultrasound and CT unit.

St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Companies Inc. was chosen as general contractor on the project because of its design-build delivery approach that involves open communication between the trades, creating efficient processes as a result.

The on-site construction team will be using standard BIM practices, such as above ceiling coordination, virtual mock-ups and concrete lift drawings. UTMB will be working closely with Dallas-headquartered HKS Architects, the designer on the project, to use a BIM technique that will deliver a spatially coordinated design model. This helps with communication, lessening assumptions that the design team has to make during the design phase and reducing the need to redesign early on.

“UTMB is committed to providing the best patient care possible in its mission to improve health for the people of Texas and around the world,” said Donna Sollenberger, executive vice president and CEO of UTMB’s Health System. “We are excited that this expansion allows us the opportunity to provide more services and convenience to our patients who live in the rapidly growing Bay Area in a completely integrated system of care.”

The $82 million specialty care center is slated for completion in the spring of 2015. The $8 million, 5,000-square-foot central plant facility will also be built to provide utilities to the 62-acre Victory Lakes campus and is scheduled for completion in August 2014.

McCarthy has worked on several health care faciities, including the Children’s Hospital of Orange County and Torrance Memorial Medical Center Replacement Tower in California, and the new Mercy Hospital Joplin in Missouri.