News
Sutter’s California Pacific Medical Center Van Ness Campus Hospital project wins two national awards
SACRAMENTO, CA (Dec. 19, 2019)–Sutter’s California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) Van Ness Campus (VNC) Hospital Project, a $2.1B, 274-bed hospital in San Francisco, has won top honors from the Construction Users Round Table. The project was awarded the Construction Industry Safety Excellence Award which recognizes project teams that have achieved high levels of safety performance, culture, and innovation to achieve zero injuries. The project also won the Construction Industry Project Excellence Award which recognizes projects that add value, eliminate waste, and increase overall excellence in safety, cost performance, schedule performance, quality, and innovation.
Occupying an entire city block in the second-most densely populated city in the U.S, VNC is Sutter Health’s largest project to date and the first new hospital in the heart of San Francisco in more than 25 years. The 13-story facility, located at the intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Geary Blvd., is home to nearly 1 million sq. ft. of acute care program space, including two levels of below-grade parking, and is designed to provide advanced healthcare services such as cardiac, transplant and orthopedic surgeries, adult and neonatal intensive care, labor and delivery and emergency services. Every detail of the maternity, orthopedics, emergency and pediatric care services is geared toward creating a healing environment for patients. The new state of the art hospital is connected to a nine-story medical office building via a tunnel below Van Ness Avenue (Business Route US Highway 101). From 2013 to 2018, 5.4 million hours were worked at this site, with no fatalities and only two lost workdays reported. At its peak, with approximately 1,000 workers on-site, the project had 15 safety professionals working collaboratively on the Safety Leadership Group. This team was responsible for setting safety goals and policies, as well as being a key resource for safety expertise and questions.
“Safety on this project started before we broke ground,” said Paul Klemish, HerreroBoldt’s Project Director. “Safety was a core value of the project and we empowered all team members to be transparent with, and responsible for, any and all safety matters.”
Specific initiatives contributed to the high degree of safety on the job site, including:
- Trade partners qualification included rigorous safety standards
- Safety Leadership Group used Lean tools for continuous improvement
- Pre-job meetings were held with all trade partners to establish project expectations, roles and responsibilities, desired outcomes, and review site-specific safety needs
- Project teams worked with safety professionals to develop and implement strategic safety plans prior to the start of construction
“The results of the safety culture on this project, with 5.4 million worker hours logged, are a true testament to the Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) team’s dedication to trust, teamwork and constant encouragement,” said Dave Kievet, chief operating officer of The Boldt Company.
Transparency and a high degree of collaboration were critical to the success of this project. Using IPD, the team prioritized up-front planning and ongoing communications between the owner, architect, construction manager and subcontractors. Other IPD tools used include:
- Weekly discussion on cost impacts and solutions for shared savings
- Use of state-of-the-art modeling and fabrication techniques
- A production team with leaders from each trade partner focused on production management, creating high levels of efficiency
- Inspector of Record co-located with the team and joined the daily design and execution discussions
“This landmark project is the culmination of a 10-year vision demonstrating Sutter’s deep commitment to San Francisco,” said Mark Herrero, president and chief executive officer of Herrero Builders. “I’m extremely proud of the truly collaborative team whose creativity and focus on continuous improvement brought this project to life.”
The project also won 2019 ENR’s Northern California Best Healthcare Project of the Year and the Safety Award of Merit. It is also a finalist for ENR Project of the Year.
The IPD team consisted of Sutter’s California Pacific Medical Center, SmithGroup (architect), and HerreroBoldt (general contractor) and 14 additional risk and reward members (California Drywall, Custom Engineered Openings, Degenkolb Engineers, GFE Norcal, Harrison Drywall, ISEC, Pankow, RLH Fire Protection, Rosendin Electric, RTKL Associates, Silverman & Light, Southland Industries, Ted Jacob Engineering Group and Vantage Technology Consulting).
About The Boldt Company
The Boldt Company (Boldt) is a leading professional construction services firm with customers across the United States and is a subsidiary of The Boldt Group. Founded in 1889, Boldt is a fourth-generation family and employee-owned firm headquartered in Appleton, Wisconsin. Boldt is recognized as a pioneer in Lean construction and in the industrialized construction space. Boldt operates 18 offices across the U.S. that serve customers in healthcare, power, industrial, education, automotive and commercial markets.
