Tacoma General Hospital Milgard Pavilion Emergency Department and Cancer Center Expansion
Skanska provided preconstruction and construction management services on a new 185,000-SF, five-story addition and 20,000-SF renovation of the existing emergency department and cancer center. The new building contains a cancer center with radiation therapy and oncology services, an express treatment area and an expanded emergency department with a level 2 trauma center. State-of-the-art features include a new Cyberknife room and a linear accelerator vault.
A major hurdle on the project was relocating an existing transformer that fed power to an occupied wing of the hospital. Before work on the new stair tower could begin, Skanska needed to remove the old transformer. As a result, commissioning the new transformer fell on the critical path. Further complicating matters, the new transformer vault had to be complete and functional throughout the two-year construction project occuring above and around the vault.
To address this hurdle, Skanska took the time to carefully plan the transfer of power and obtained a separate permit for the transformer vault to seamlessly keep the project on track. In addition, the Skanska team had to prepare the new building for future vertical expansion work. The team put in the extra effort to ensure that the steel columns, roof drains, shear walls and embeds necessary for the future expansion were properly designed, installed and protected. In addition, our superintendent went above and beyond the drawing requirements and added stair landing embeds in the north stairwell to facilitate future work.