Albuquerque Star Gets Facelift

Lovelace Medical Center Goes Under the Knife

By Neal Singer

The renovation of Albuquerque's Lovelace Downtown Medical Center will modernize the 10-story hospital, which will serve as a central inpatient and cardiac center. In the meantime, the local star is also ready for its national close-up, as it is being featured as the set for a Hollywood film while some floors are closed for renovation.

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Albuquerque's Lovelace Downtown Medical Center is being brought up to speed as the centerpiece of the Lovelace Health System, the state's second-largest health provider.

Scott Custer, project manager for general contractor Robins and Morton of Nashville, calls the $60 million renovation of the outdated 10-story hospital, which was once known as St. Joseph's, interesting but difficult work. The hospital already has undergone remodels large and small over the decades.

"We have very detailed coordination with hospital staff and subcontractors for various tie-ins of new utility lines with old branches," he adds.

The 38-year-old hospital located between Interstate 25 and downtown, which for a short time was known as the Albuquerque Regional Medical Center, will replace the building that formerly served as headquarters for Lovelace, located in southeast Albuquerque on Gibson Boulevard just north of Kirtland Air Force Base.

The switch in headquarters location was provoked by an outside consultant, says Brian McDonald, administrative director of Lovelace facilities in New Mexico. The consultant pointed out that the old St. Joseph's was easier to see from the city's north-south freeway (I-25) as well as easier to get to than the old headquarters.

The Gibson facility is 538,000 sq ft while the downtown facility
is 333,000 sq ft.

The Lovelace downtown facility will serve as the system's main inpatient center, while the former main facility will remain in the system to provide specialist outpatient services. Lovelace is owned by Ardent Health Services, also headquartered in Nashville.

The renovated eighth and ninth floors of the hospital will form the hub of an ultramodern cardiac center when it opens in May. Other improvements include a new inpatient surgery center, an expanded emergency department and a face-lift of the building's exterior that will change its color from white to earth tones.

The renovation job was originally pegged between $120 million to $160 million, according to project architect Jeff Zellner of Albuquerque-based The Design Group, which works as a team with Robins and Morton.

"The project has changed scope many times," Zallner says. Delays, as well as changes in Ardent upper management, meant reduction in the scope of the renovation as well as delaying some nonessential upgrades, he says.

Because the hospital is a working facility, with patients in beds and surgeries in progress, upgrades take place only one-half floor at a time. A fire barrier and sound insulation separate workpeople from hospital personnel. Renovations near operating rooms are performed during off-hours.

"Once you open up walls, you find stuff you hadn't planned for, like worn plumbing or ductwork from previous remodels not on the plans," McDonald says. "There are electrical conduits not noted - just little jobs that got done here and there that are not recorded, as well as circuits between floors. We're documenting these as we go."

There are also water lines that need to be moved but have no shutoff valves, McDonald adds. "We freeze the pipe," he says. "The ice forms a plug. Then we cut the pipe and add a valve shutoff."

Zellner says the biggest challenge is for the infrastructure to be maintained.

"We can't have outages," he adds. "It would be costly in funding and in lives.

To keep the facility running at 100% capacity, we must maintain exceptional coordination with different mechanical/electrical teams as they operate on different floors."

Some of the upgrades are so extensive that an entire floor must be taken down, Zellner says.

McDonald says an unusual factor to coordinate during the renovation is the occasional presence of Hollywood movie stars. Because New Mexico has attempted to lure the movie industry to the state, media producers have responded by requesting to shoot scenes on empty hospital floors.

"We try to accommodate them," McDonald says. "They give a stipend to the hospital, which the hospital donates to charity, and it's really no problem."



Key Players

Owner: Ardent Health Systems
Architect: The Design Group
General Contractor: Robins and Morton
Engineers: Bridgers & Paxton Consulting Engineers; Arsed Engineering Group; Lopez Electrical Engineering and Construction; The Response Group