Coming together under the Arizona sun, DPR Construction joined Arizona State University (ASU), leaders from Mayo Clinic and community leaders to celebrate the groundbreaking of ASU’s Health Future Center (HFC). With completion scheduled for October 2020, this greenfield project represents another step towards the future of healthcare in Phoenix.
A Clear Vision of Future Care
HFC will be a 150,000-square-foot, three-story ground up medical learning facility adjacent to the Mayo Clinic. The new facility will provide the surrounding communities with new technology including a med-tech innovation accelerator, biomedical engineering and informatics research labs, and an education zone. In addition, it will provide a new, innovative nursing program model where students are taught to treat patients through a whole health model. Based on the strength of a decade-long relationship with ASU, DPR was chosen to kick off the development and construction of the first building on this new breakthrough campus.
HFC will be the blending point between Mayo Clinic and Arizona State University Alliance for Health Care, a team brought together with the goal of transforming medical education and health care in the U.S.
“Having the opportunity to work alongside two industry leaders, such as Mayo and ASU, and deliver a world-class research facility that will transform the medical education field and improve the lives of future generations is what I am most excited about for myself and for DPR,” said DPR’s Casey Helburg, who serves as project manager.
The Power of Preconstruction
Determined to deliver ASU’s vision for the new medical facility, DPR’s preconstruction team collaborated with the design team to better deliver accurate estimates of each program type (user group of the space) and its components (value of materials) during early design stages. This level of precision accurately identifies where the budget is being allocated at any given stage of design—providing real-time information and the opportunity to make key decisions for the project earlier.
“Normally our program estimate is by program space, but our estimator, Shashi Sriram, developed an estimate down to the room space. Basically, she could sort the estimate by over 400 rooms, which is such a granular level of information at programming, but was extremely useful information,” said Cassie Robertson, who serves as the project’s preconstruction manager. “When the project partners were making early program adjustments it was easy to measure out the changes at a higher level which was the first time we were able to do that.”
Robertson and Sriram communicated in real time with ASU about the interior build-out cost, MEP cost and total tenant improvement cost before the start of schematic design. These benefits allowed ASU to collaborate efficiently with the design and construction team to iterate multiple estimating scenarios in a matter of one to three days.
Creating a Vision Together
During the groundbreaking ceremony, the Mayor of Phoenix, Vice Mayor and the CEO of Mayo Clinic shared their personal stories to set the stage for what the HFC really means to the City of Phoenix and the impact it will have on the biomedical industry.
“We think that the two of us together can be the corpus or the center or the anchor of what could evolve to be something that hasn’t yet developed in this country and hasn’t yet developed anywhere in the world, and that is the broadest focused health futures place,” said ASU President, Michael Crow.
The Desert Ridge area is north of where most Valley construction activity is taking place. The greenfield plot, however, will serve as a focal point for future development.