Leopardo Completes $38M in Hospital Additions

CHICAGO-Leopardo Construction recently finished a $31.3-million addition to the University of Chicago’s Comer Children’s Hospital, 5730 S. Drexel Ave., and a $6.9-million expansion at Swedish Covenant Hospital, 2739 W. Foster Ave. A 140,000-sf addition was constructed at Comer Children’s Hospital, including a pediatric emergency department. Swedish Covenant Hospital’s emergency department was expanded by 11,000 sf.

The 18-month project at Comer Children’s Hospital included a five-story addition a pediatric emergency department on the first floor, several floors of shell space for future expansion and the top floor for mechanical, electrical, steam and chilled water systems, says project manager Michael Mastin. “They were looking to update their facilities and have a new pediatric emergency department,” Mastin says. The pediatric emergency department includes 21 exam rooms and various other types of rooms such as trauma, procedure, isolation and psychiatric examination rooms. The project also included a lobby with interactive children’s games and a patient monitoring hub that allows for “real-time” data. The hospital remained occupied during the project necessitating an alert system if noise became too loud or there was a risk of the vibrations compromising patient care. “Since we were working next to an occupied and live hospital, they had a system in place where we could basically shut down the entire job site in moments notice,” he says.