The West Side facility will become the main VA in-patient hospital in Chicago. The move, part of the CARES program, will combine VA in-patient beds from Chicago Lakeside and Chicago West Side. The CARES program is a planning process to ensure that veterans’ future needs for accessible, quality healthcare are met and to align capital assets to meet those needs.
The Department of Veterans Affairs operates the largest integrated healthcare system in the country with more than 1,300 sites of care. VA West Side is located within the Illinois Medical District, which also includes the University of Illinois-Chicago and Rush Medical Center.
SOM/Ellerbe Becket (Joint Venture) will design a new multi-story, 224,000-sf addition and a 20,000-sf renovation to the existing building. The team represents SOM’s Chicago design legacy (Sears Tower, Hancock Tower) and Ellerbe Becket’s healthcare resume (90 years of design for the Mayo Clinic, downtown Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial redevelopment project). Ellerbe Becket’s work for the VA dates back to 1946.
The planned VA addition will include 200 new beds, a medical intensive care unit, surgical intensive care unit, a psychiatric unit, and a surgical suite with eight operating rooms.
The project also will include utility relocations, demolition of an auditorium and coordination of the new structure with an existing parking garage.
Project Manager Tom Fromm of SOM says the team will provide programming, master planning, architecture, interiors, engineering, environmental graphics, MEP, sustainable design and construction administration.
Adrian Hagerty of Ellerbe Becket is associate project manager. His recent hospital redevelopment experience includes Stonewall Jackson Hospital in Lexington, Va.; and Chesapeake General Hospital in Chesapeake, Va.
Two principals from each firm will serve on the joint venture management committee. The SOM representatives are partners Richard F. Tomlinson II, Peter G. Ellis and William F. Baker (alternate). The Ellerbe Becket representatives are principals Paul Zugates, Randy Wood and CEO Rick Lincicome (alternate).
Since it was founded in Chicago in 1936, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP has undertaken more than 10,000 architecture, engineering, interior design, urban design and planning projects in more than 50 countries. Throughout its history, SOM has been recognized with more than 840 awards.
An innovator since its founding in 1909, Ellerbe Becket is a leader in architecture, engineering and the construction industry with office locations worldwide.
Contact:
SOM: Tom Fromm, 312-360-4905
Ellerbe Becket: news@ellerbebecket.com
