Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Construction Completed at the Ochsner PT and Primary Care Clinic at Bellemeade



The Ochsner PT and Primary Care Clinic at Bellemeade has been substantially completed by Clement Building Company on September 1st, 2016, for  Ochsner Health Systems in Terrytown, Louisiana.

This former K&B, an existing tilt-up concrete and steel framed building building consists of 19,043 SF of built area, on one floor with a mechanical mezzanine, and contains both a primary care clinic and a separate physical therapy clinic under the same roof.

The physical therapy clinic consists of  a 5500 SF gymnasium, full of equipment and therapy tables, as well as five 100 SF treatment rooms.  The suite also includes a waiting area, which is able to see the activity in the gym, but is shielded from the noise by an interior storefront wall.  There is also a custom reception desk that opens to both the waiting room and to the gymnasium, through the glass wall.  There is also a pediatrics room to treat children.

Since the Primary Care clinic is so large, it is designed specifically to be easy to navigate for patients.  The 26 exam rooms of the overall clinic have been arranged into two color-coded sub-clinics, and the hallways have been opened up to the existing high roof deck above.  The subtly color-coded cores of these sub clinics are the nurse stations, which are clustered around the doctor pods, secluded areas where doctors can collaborate with the nurses and one another in relative privacy, with most of the supplies and service spaces that all the caregivers will need located nearby. These two color coded service pods are visible from all hallways within that large, open, simplified volume, which makes it incredibly easy for patients to orient themselves within the large clinic.

The primary care clinic includes an X-ray suite, 23 regular exam rooms, one bariatric exam room, 2 large exam rooms, a shared/E-visit room, a conference room that can double as an exam room, a two-seat blood draw room, a point-of-care testing facility, a medications room, several enclosed offices for supervisors and scheduling needs, and plenty of storage.  The waiting room is enclosed by interior storefront, allowing views and an open feel to both the other waiting room, as well as the activity and dynamism within the gymnasium.

Despite the large footprint of the overall project, there were difficulties during design in fitting the extensive program within the building.  Careful analysis of the contents and usage of each room with the users helped us to massage the layout until all of the desired features could be accommodated.  One innovative technique we used was to install several single-stall restrooms, instead of large multi-stall restrooms.   This allowed us to have a smaller overall square footage of restroom area, by reducing the interior circulation space within the restrooms.  Making the restrooms unisex also allowed us to have fewer fixtures overall, as anyone can use any restroom.

Construction took  5 Months, since March 31st, 2016.  Including the 5 Months of design, the entire length of the project has been 11 months.

The final building cost of the project was $2.7 million, or $144/SF.  Change orders were kept below 3% of the bid cost.

We thank Ochsner Health Systems  and Clement Building Company for working with us on the project, and wish them the best in the future.