Healthcare Design - August 2017 - 24

WJ BARNABAS HEALTH had a puzzle to solve when
expanding its Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, N.J. First, the project team, including architect Francis Cauffman (New York), general
contractor Torcon (Red Bank, N.J.), and developer
Rendina Healthcare Real Estate (Jupiter, Fla.),
needed to figure out where to build a new ICU and
physician office space on a tight urban campus and
connect it to the existing hospital. The old ICU, which opened in 1956,
was outdated, while office space in the building was inadequate for today's larger, multispecialty care groups. Then there was the matter of
New Jersey building codes: Floor height regulations differed from the
1950s to today, requiring a clever solution when connecting the new
building to the existing hospital.
The first piece to solve was location. Ten different options were considered, from adding new parking decks so the expansion could be built
on an existing parking lot to demolishing existing campus buildings. Instead, the developer proposed tearing down the front façade of the existing hospital and constructing an 87,000-square-foot addition-a solution
that involved relocating the hospital CEO's office, rerouting a roadway,
building a significant retaining wall to support the new structure, and tying in wiring and HVAC systems from the addition to the existing hospital. "The selected location and design provided the best solution for the
patients, by placing them closest to other services within the hospital,
with a direct connection from the new facility to the existing hospital,"
says Steve Barry, executive vice president of business development at
Rendina Healthcare Real Estate. "An added benefit was that it created a
new face for the hospital to communicate to the community that Clara
Maass was embracing the future of healthcare."

AUGUST 2017

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ABOVE: The ground floor

of the addition, which
ties directly into the
existing hospital, features
a new main entrance,
lobby, patient registration area, and retail
pharmacy. BELOW: The
new 27,000-square-foot,
32-bed ICU features
private patient rooms with
upgraded technology
and patient monitoring
systems.

To deal with the differing floor heights, team
members looked at several options, including
long slanted walkways or short elevator rides
to transport people to different floors. They
ultimately decided to connect the ground and
third floors at grade with the existing hospital;
floors one and two are offset, creating a split
floor plan. The first floor is a half-floor, with
7 feet of hidden dead space. The second floor,
which has some hidden dead space, as well, is
a full floor that looks over a new atrium. This
combination of split floor plan, atrium, and
dead space ultimately allows the ground and
third floors to correctly line up with the existing structure.
The four-story expansion also features a new
main entrance, lobby, patient registration area,
and retail pharmacy on the ground floor. The
first and second floors house physician office
space. The new 27,000-square-foot, 32-bed ICU
is located on the third floor and features private
rooms with pull-out beds for visitors, family nutrition centers, and waiting areas.
On the exterior, Barry says the design tries
to marry the past and the present. "We wanted
to take the opportunity to not just replace or
mimic what was there," Barry says. "We wanted
to borrow from it in certain aspects." To that
point, the brick elements on the new building
were chosen to tie in to the hospital, while a
curved glass wall on the front of the new addition creates a sleek, modern look. Additional
elements at the entry, including the three-level
atrium in the lobby, help improve the patient
experience. "The atrium produces a sense of
arrival with soothing color tones and clear wayfinding signage to reduce stress for patients and
visitors," Barry says.-Kara Gebhart Uhl

S COTT GABRIEL MORRIS, S GM PHOTOGRAPHY

monitor

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Healthcare Design - August 2017

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