The delivery of structural and architectural precast by Gate Precast to the site of Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center's new 330,000-square-foot, nine-story addition in Jacksonville, Fla., will begin in June, following an intensive design-assist process.
As part of the integrated cancer care program of Baptist Health and MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, the new center, along with a 600-vehicle precast parking garage, is expected to open by mid-2018.
Brandi Combs, Gate Precast's project manager in Jacksonville, says the variety of architectural precast panels specified for Baptist MD Anderson's tower made design-assist invaluable. More than 20 types of taper panels, two patterns of form liner panels and numerous flat panels with 1.5-inch reveals will eventually clad the building. As such, Gate's Jacksonville and Kissimmee plants have participated in weekly design meetings with the owner, architect, engineers and key subcontractors to work through constructability issues.
"When you're putting that many different products on a building, the designers typically have concerns about waterproofing, exposed connections, etc." Combs says. "Through design-assist and BIM modeling, we were able to tweak the design and alleviate their concerns."
HKS Architects Inc., an international company with an office in Orlando, and FreemanWhite, a Haskell Company dedicated exclusively to health care, are the project's designers. DPR Construction, with offices regionally and nationally, in partnership with Jacksonville-based Perry-McCall, are the contractors. The new cancer center will be built on two blocks across from the existing Baptist MD Anderson, which opened in October 2015.
Rupert Brown, associate principal and senior vice president of HKS, says Gate's design-assist services have been crucial. "Bringing the team members on board who are ultimately responsible for the manufacturing and installation of certain key building elements allowed for an enhanced level of collaboration, review and decision making," Brown says.
He adds that precast concrete panels were the perfect choice for large sections of the cancer center's façade. "The ability to incorporate sophisticated patterning and unique forms in large format panel sizes is a characteristic perfectly suited to architectural precast."
