Engineering Boulder Community Health Riverbend Medical Pavilion

Bringing together multiple medical services onto a single, consolidated campus

Creating a new campus that would support many different aspects of healthcare in close proximity was an overall goal for Boulder Community Health in its move to Riverbend from the Broadway campus.

Location

Boulder, USA

Client

Boulder Community Health

Architect

Boulder Associates

Project Status

Completed in 2018

Contractor

Wyatt Construction

engineering-Riverbend- South East Corner of Building

A new behavioral health facility for Boulder Community Health

This project represents the 4th phase of the original master plan for this greenfield campus and added a new 76,000-square-foot (7,060 m²) three-story medical building that houses inpatient behavioral health patients, inpatient rehabilitation patients, Electroconvulsive therapy procedure rooms, and several clinics for Boulder Community Health. The project also included a 460-space parking garage with some mixed-use retail space. Both the building and garage are 55 feet tall (17m), thanks to an exemption from the Planning Board to the city’s 35-foot (11 m) limit.

Bringing together services onto one campus

The medical building has brought together services for patients that were previously in different locations, reducing the need for travel and therefore improving efficiency, safety and recovery. The facilities include an outpatient area, procedure rooms, behavioral health in-patient facilities and space for integrative care such as therapeutic massage, acupuncture and Reiki. These services are important resources for many patients, including those at the nearby Rocky Mountain Cancer Center.

WSP provided Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing services for the owner, Boulder Community Health, including work on the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems.

Incorporated aggressive requirements for energy efficiency

High energy saving targets achieved

City of Boulder codes require the building to operate 30% better than International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) 2012 requirements. These aggressive requirements meant the design team needed to study many different design approaches while always watching the overall project budget. Ultimately, the team, along with owner input, decided on a high-efficiency boiler and domestic hot water plant coupled with packaged rooftop equipment with DX cooling and evaporative condensing.

Wellbeing at the center of the design

The building is designed to utilize tunable white lighting throughout all the patient care areas. The lighting system is designed to change the lighting color temperatures to mimic natural circadian rhythms to promote patient wellness, provide better healing outcomes, and increase staff satisfaction.