PRESS PACKET TABLE OF CONTENTS

Overview
Project Facts
Design Firms
Design Team
Design Team Comments
Architectural Team
Project/Consultant Team
Hospital Redevelopment History
Hospital Project Team
Hospital Project Team

CHICAGO (05/19/1999) – Nearly a decade ago, Northwestern Memorial Hospital challenged three of the country’s leading health care architectural firms–Ellerbe Becket, HOK and VOA–to work together to design a new academic medical center on its historic campus in Chicago’s lively Streeterville neighborhood.

On May 1, after a 10-year odyssey of intensive planning, design, and construction, Northwestern Memorial’s vision came to life with the opening of its new two-million-sq.ft. (185,800 m²), high-rise medical center on a compact site in the heart of downtown Chicago.

The US $580 million facility takes its place as one of the world’s most progressive medical centers. The new Northwestern Memorial Hospital includes the 22-story Galter Outpatient Pavilion, the 17-story, 492-bed Feinberg Inpatient Pavilion, and an adjacent 2,000-car parking structure. Separate entries lead into the ambulatory and inpatient towers, which are connected by an eight-story base containing shared diagnostic and treatment areas and public spaces.

“Patients First” forms building foundation
Northwestern Memorial gave life to its Patients First philosophy by building its essence into the design process. The design team’s facility planners and designers understood that, as stewards for the institution’s future, Northwestern Memorial’s leaders would question how each design decision sustained the hospital’s guiding principle of delivering the highest quality patient care. The project would succeed only if it expressed that Patients First philosophy through both the architectural form and the internal planning concepts.

“Developing an understanding of Northwestern Memorial was what the project was all about,” said Rebel Roberts, VOA’s director of design. “We’ve created a setting for people–a place where patients feel that caregivers truly care about them.”

“The design team immersed itself in our culture and objectives,” noted Gary A. Mecklenburg, president and chief executive officer of Northwestern Memorial. “They articulated our vision in designing an environment that comforts patients and their families, responds to staff and technological needs, and provides superior, fiscally responsible health care.”

Two programs blend into one
The new Northwestern Memorial Hospital is the product of two distinct, yet interrelated, sets of program needs. An “inside-out,” functional program requirement called for replacing Northwestern Memorial’s aging inpatient care facilities and developing a new ambulatory care infrastructure. The second “outside-in” requirement was for the interior and exterior design to acknowledge Northwestern Memorial’s civic presence, national prominence, and commitment to patients and staff.

“Our goal was to blend the functional space program and the aesthetic program into one,” said Hank Winkelman, senior medical designer and planner at HOK. “The inner components give the building its exterior look.”

Prominent downtown Chicago site
The team explored a variety of options before deciding that the best solution was to combine all Northwestern Memorial’s new hospital and ambulatory care components on one “superblock” site within the existing medical center campus. Bringing the majority of patient services under one roof would help Northwestern Memorial avoid redundancies in services and equipment – and would be more convenient for patients and their families.

The extraordinary three-acre (1.2 ha) site selected by Northwestern Memorial is next to several existing Northwestern University Medical School buildings in the neighborhood known as Streeterville, just north of Chicago’s “Loop,” between North Michigan Avenue and Lake Michigan. The site is bounded by Huron Street to the north, Fairbanks Court to the east, Erie Street to the south and St. Clair Street to the west.

The new hospital does not turn its back on any street or access approach. The front faces north, toward the earlier generation of patient care facilities–the Wesley, Olson and Passavant Pavilions. The outpatient, public-intensive Galter Pavilion is on the western, more commercial end of the site, where it invites ambulatory care patients in from the city. The Feinberg Inpatient Pavilion is to the east, in closer proximity to the rest of the medical campus.

Exterior design
Though it is a new building, Northwestern Memorial Hospital already feels like it belongs in the community. From the inviting entry plaza to the straightforward exterior expression, the new hospital fits. “There are no unnecessary elements layered on,” said John Waugh, design and planning principal for Ellerbe Becket. “It really is a Chicago building.”

The building strikes a balance between its heritage and its time. The design, which defies conventional typecasting, is both solid and generous, comforting and expressive. There is a sense of civility and calmness at the ground and power at the top.

While creating one unified structure, the design acknowledges the different ambulatory care and inpatient functions housed within each tower. The towers are different, but members of the same Northwestern Memorial family. In each tower, precast concrete and glass have been combined in a composition of richly developed planes and corners, shadow lines, and mullion patterns.

The Galter Pavilion uses more glass than stone and projects a light, vibrant feeling. To connect patients with the city to which they will soon return, the building contains a greater proportion of glass and a more delicate tracery of mullions than the Feinberg Pavilion.

The Feinberg Pavilion is articulated with more stone than glass, providing a sense of comfort and enclosure for patients. Framed views of the city and of Lake Michigan, combined with hotel-like comfort, creates an environment in which patients and their families can find relief from their stress and focus on their recovery.

Anchored by an eight-story base that encourages street-level activity and invites people in, the Galter and Feinberg Pavilions rise toward the sky in a series of welcoming setbacks. The lack of hard edges reassures visitors they are entering a benevolent environment.

While joining the tradition of Chicago architecture in terms of scale, palette, and texture, the new hospital contributes its own new features. There are some delightful surprises. The tall, inviting entry plaza. The windows at the corners that race up the sides of the building. The lantern at the top of the ambulatory building that acts as a metaphor for the non-stop energy and activity happening there. The swooping glass- topped canopies that exuberantly announce to visitors that they have reached the front doors and that they are welcome. The exciting, non-traditional uses of metal and glass. These are surprises that give the building life and proclaim its 21st century design.

Interior design
People seeking out health care rely on state-of-the-art equipment and the latest innovations in medicine. Confronted by sickness, though, patients look for refuge in a compassionate health care environment. It was this type of timeless human aesthetic, reflecting a Patients First healing environment, guided the Northwestern Memorial design team.

Many of the design team’s most innovative efforts are visible within each of the 492 private patient rooms in the Feinberg Pavilion. With the exception of 91 intensive care unit rooms, all rooms have a window seat/daybed that seats three people and also converts to a twin bed for overnight stays by family members–an award-winning amenity designed specifically for the hospital. Furnishings include a specially designed wing-back chair that provides neck support and a headrest should patients fall asleep while seated.

In the 22-story Galter Pavilion, the same Patients First philosophy guided the design. By vertically stacking ambulatory care services and linking those services to shared diagnostic and treatment areas, the design enhances patients’ convenience. Patients can visit their primary care physician, undergo tests, and consult with a specialist–all without ever leaving the building.

Functional integration
One of the unique features of the new hospital is the manner in which the diagnostic and treatment areas are functionally integrated. Each level provides state-of-the-art facilities that serve both ambulatory and inpatient needs. Each floor represents a distinct functional setting, for example, one floor accommodates all cardiological requirements for the hospital’s patients including nuclear imaging and stress testing, electronic monitoring, interventional imaging and cardiac catheterization as well as a cardiac intensive care unit. Thirtytwo operating rooms are located on two floors separated by a mechanical and electrical floor that also includes all surgical and central sterilization support. One surgical floor contains general operating rooms for both inpatient and ambulatory procedures; the other consolidates Northwestern Memorial’s renowned transplant program and specialty operating rooms with an adjacent intensive care unit assuring optimal patient care.

Spatial and infrastructure modularity was also a key design concern. The resulting planning module, accommodating circulation, exam and procedure area requirements, is sized to assure that future redevelopment will not be hindered by inappropriate column or shaft locations. Patient rooms and nursing unit configurations have been designed to a larger planning module in order to accommodate future changes in patient population types and acuity levels. Additionally, a large proportion of acute beds may easily be converted to an intensive care environment as future demands require. Structural, communications, and mechanical and electrical systems have extra capacity to accommodate new technologies. A larger floorto- floor module easily accommodates future redevelopment requirements.

Circulation
Because the hospital is in a bustling neighborhood in one of the largest U.S. cities, the designers wanted to forge clear paths of navigation to help patients and their families move easily to their destinations–to welcome people into a comforting environment.

The high-rise design solution stacked the various hospital spaces by floor, on top of one another. To orient visitors, the team placed all primary public corridors, elevators, and waiting rooms along a 40-ft.-wide (12 m) area on the north edge of the building–the same side as the main entry. These “North 40” spaces draw in natural light and creates scenic views of the Chicago skyline. “To a great extent, this circulation backbone – which is visible from the outside – becomes the foundation for the building’s exterior image,” noted Ellerbe Becket’s Waugh.

Northwestern Memorial reinvents itself
A major institution like Northwestern Memorial Hospital rarely has the opportunity to reinvent itself. Yet that’s exactly the position Northwestern found itself in during the late 1980s, when its leaders began thinking about replacing the hospital’s aging facilities and consolidating its diverse physician group practices with a new medical center in downtown Chicago.

Northwestern Memorial’s just-completed facility redevelopment is unrivaled in health care. Nobody in the U.S. has built a project that combines this wide scope of ambulatory and inpatient programs. It is a new generation hospital that recognizes the increasing importance of providing flexible ambulatory care space that is not subordinate to the hospital. Ambulatory care has matured, and this building has redefined the mix.

Project Facts
Details of the Challenges – Northwestern Memorial Redevelopment

Site is 600 ft. by 218 ft. (183 m by 66.5 m)

80 percent of the space in the new hospital is ambulatory. The new facility consolidates ambulatory facilities that were scattered among 22 sites in a six block area.

The new building replaces hospital beds and services in Passavant, Olson and Wesley pavilions which had become limited by aging mechanical systems and offered insufficient space for future expansion.

Outside surface forming the exterior is equivalent to 16 acres (6.5 ha).

Weight: 500 million pounds, equal to the weight of 40,000 elephants.

Floor area: 44 American football fields

Excavation: 70,000 cubic yards (53,520 cu.m.) or 140 thousand tons of land. A dump truck left the site every three to four minutes, filling 120 to 160 truckloads a day.

Steel: 18,000 tons, equal to the amount in three average skyscrapers. There are 30,000 pieces of steel and three cranes were used to set the steel.

Concrete: Building sits on 197 concrete caissons. 10,000 truckloads of concrete were used. Enough concrete to build a 450-mile (724 km) sidewalk.

Precast Concrete: 3,200 precast concrete panels were placed to form the exterior. The panels weigh from 1,500 to 3,000 pounds each (680 kg to 1,361 kg).

Glass: 230,000 sq.ft. (21,370 ² ), equal to 6.5 American football fields.

Elevators: 44

Escalators: 6 pair

Electrical Conduit: more than two million feet (609,600 m)

Electrical Outlets: 23,000

Electrical Wiring: 10 million ft. (3.1 million m)

Light Switches: 7,000

Light Fixtures: 40,000

Piping: 165 miles (265.5 km)

Plumbing Fixtures: 4,100

Sheet Metal Ductwork: More than two million pounds (907,200 kg)

Design Firms
Three of the Country’s Leading Health Care Architectural Firms Work Together

Ellerbe Becket
Since 1909 Ellerbe Becket has been synonymous with innovative solutions and committed client service. With approximately 700 employees and 12 offices worldwide, the firm provides integrated services ranging from strategic planning through post-construction.

Ellerbe Becket planners and designers began with a long-standing tradition of health care design excellence when the firm designed the first group practice for the Mayo Clinic in 1914. Today the firm ranks consistently among the top five health care design firms in the U.S. with clients in every major business sector.

HOK
Since its founding in 1955, HOK has grown into one of the world’s leading design firms. Based in St. Louis, the firm has 28 worldwide offices and more than 2,000 employees. HOK’s mission is to deliver quality designs and intelligent services in architecture, interiors, planning, graphics, and facilities planning and assessment. HOK’s Health Care focus group has completed more than 400 projects, ranging from basic renovation work to entire replacement campuses. The group draws on the worldwide resources and experience of approximately 100 HOK design professionals, including medical designers and planners and medical equipment specialists.

VOA Architects
VOA Associates Incorporated, founded in 1969, is a professional service organization offering comprehensive services, including strategic planning, programming, interior design, architecture, landscape architecture and technology integration. Offices are located in Chicago, Orlando, Fla., Jacksonville, Fla., Miami, Washington, D.C., and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

VOA is committed to the creation of life enhancing environments. Our health care team’s strength lies in our ability to structure design creativity within an established context and budget. We understand the necessary programmatic criteria and, importantly, providing our clients with a facility that recognizes the “Standard of Excellence” in planning, design and execution.

Design Team
Key Players Create ‘One Design Firm’

John L. Waugh, AIA
John Waugh is a senior medical planner who has worked 22 years for Ellerbe Becket as a health care design and planning principal. He was Ellerbe Becket’s senior medical planner and designer for the new Northwestern Memorial Hospital. When discussing health care design, Waugh talks about challenges, complexity, and diversity: “To make a health care facility work well and be beautiful is extremely challenging. A need for efficient operations often drives the entire project.” For Waugh, the essence of good health care design is when planning and design come together to create a flexible, enduring building that will serve the client for 50 to 100 years.

Rebel Roberts, AIA
As VOA’s director of architecture, Rebel Roberts provided innovative design ideas at a principal level for the new Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Roberts’ focus on architectural design excellence and client service ensured that the hospital’s diverse project team delivered the most advanced health care facility to meet 21st century medical needs. Roberts says that, in addition to providing the ideal patient environment, the design team considered the needs of Northwestern Memorial’s staff. “We believe that the medical care delivered in a facility will be measurably better if the people delivering it are comfortable in their environment.”

Gyo Obata, FAIA
Gyo Obata is a co-founder, a member of the board of directors, and the co-director of design at HOK. He has led the design of many of firm’s most recognized projects around the world. The Patients First design for the new Northwestern Memorial Hospital reflects Obata’s own philosophy that, beyond functionality, buildings should enhance the quality of life for those who use them.

Hank Winkelman, AIA
Hank Winkelman was HOK’s senior medical planner and designer for the new Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Winkelman helped develop a cohesive solution that reflects the hospital’s Patients First mission and acknowledges the architectural style of Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood. Asked what he enjoys about planning and designing large medical centers like this one, Winkelman responds: “Throughout my career, I have always been fascinated by medical centers. They house such a wide range of activities – you have to be aware of everything from creating a place for the cutting edge needs of science to being sensitive to peoples’ most intimate personal feelings. To be effective, an architect must be incredibly fluent in all the diverse requirements shaping this environment. But if one truly understands those requirements, he or she can create a better place.”

Executive Leadership Team
Bob Degenhardt, PE, chief executive officer, leads Ellerbe Becket’s focus on knowledge-based services in architecture, engineering and construction to offer integrated solutions to clients worldwide. Degenhardt is a member of the American Institute of Architects Large Firm Roundtable and the Minnesota Center for Corporate Responsibility. He also is an executive member of the endowment funding campaign for the Biomedical Engineering Institute at the University of Minnesota.

Vic Vickrey, FAIA, of VOA Associates has 50 years of managerial experience as principal-in-charge of significant architectural and planning projects located throughout the U.S. and abroad. His senior experience in planning, design and project management is continually enhanced by innovative problem-solving and commitment to quality.

Design Team Comments
Reflections on Designing a Vision

John Waugh, Ellerbe Becket

Team
“The trust and honesty of this team relationship goes on beyond the boundaries of our firms. The idea of assembling all of us in one place in a group office – with no firm name over the door – facilitated our development of a seamless project team. Everyone left their firm identity at the door and worked toward the common goal of providing the best solution for Northwestern Memorial Hospital. We’ve had an extraordinary experience which has proved to be an ideal way to produce an exceptional project.”

Hospital’s Team Selection…
“Northwestern Memorial Hospital had an interesting approach to selecting its design team for this project. Basically, we all started out competing to be the design firm for the new facility. After the initial interviews, the leadership of Northwestern Memorial Hospital asked our three firms to form one team.”

“The organization and design of the patient care services enabled us to integrate ambulatory services and enhance patient convenience. In the new facility, patients can see their primary physician, have a battery of tests, consult with a specialist and be treated without ever leaving the building.”

Project as part of Chicago architecture…
“The new Northwestern Memorial Hospital creates a sense of place and reflects not only the history and tradition of the Northwestern campus but also celebrates its place in Chicago architecture.”

“Patients First” Philosophy integrated into the building…
“Northwestern Memorial’s ‘Patients First’ philosophy is reflected in the new facility from the inviting public spaces and entryways to the way the building is organized is consistent with the ease of moving. This unique urban medical center is exceeding our own expectations.”

Integration of ambulatory care and inpatient services…
“This is a truly integrated facility that provides ambulatory and inpatient care, and also is a forum for inpatient teaching and clinical research typically done on a university campus. The uniqueness and rareness of this is that all of these activities are occuring under one roof, on one site.”

Hank Winkelman, HOK

Building as a reflection of Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s values…
“This building is the celebration of Northwestern Memorial’s rebirth and renewal as it enters the 21st century. In essence, this institution rebuilt its home to reflect its values and attitudes. This new home will take the hospital into the next millennium.”

Project challenges…
“There were several major challenges to the Northwestern Memorial Hospital project. The first focused on bringing together two healthcare facilities – an ambulatory care center and a hospital – on one site. There was a strong desire to develop different, distinct personalities for each, while at the same time integrating and developing opportunities for synergy between them. We created a functional unity and identity but differentiated the two pavilions from an aesthetic point of view.”

Circulation systems…
“Circulation systems provide much of the framework for integration of this mixed-use facility. These systems are the foundation for each patient’s experience at Northwestern Memorial. Our solution involved the location of the primary elevators, waiting, lobby and entry elements along the north edge of the building. Patients can see where they are going and, after they have reached their destination, can look back with a clear orientation. To a great extent, the exterior of the building is in fact the framework or backbone for interior movement.”

Future flexibility…
“One of the key elements of the project came from Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s vision to bring the ambulatory care components and the traditional hospital components together on the same site. This effort took a lot of courage when the rest of medical community was cutting back. It also took a unique insight on Northwestern Memorial’s part into the direction that health care is taking into the next century. It has become clearer that more health care is being delivered on an ambulatory care basis. Having a flexible environment on this site allows for easier transition to the delivery of ambulatory care services without being limited by the facility.”

How the building fits into tradition of Chicago architecture…
“One of the questions Gary Mecklenburg, president and chief executive officer at Northwestern Memorial, posed to us centered on the idea of how this new facility would fit into the very distinctive tradition of Chicago architecture. As a team, we realized that so much of this tradition is related to the boldness and confidence that major buildings in this city express. Gary’s question helped us recognize that the new Northwestern Memorial Hospital needed to have this same confidence and honesty in its expression.”

Rebel Roberts, VOA

Integration of Northwestern Memorial Hospital and design team…
“One of our main goals for this project was to design an environment that takes care of people and shows that caring. We weren’t building a monument for an institution. The result is a testament to Northwestern Memorial’s clearly expressed values and vision, particularly its commitment to dealing with patient needs in a responsive manner. We were guided by these values and visions at every step in the design process.”

Northwestern Memorial Hospital as mixed-use building…
“The new Northwestern Memorial is more than a hospital or a health care center, it’s a multi-use building in this incredible downtown Chicago Streeterville neighborhood.”

Building as a reflection of Northwestern Memorial Hospital values…
“Northwestern Memorial Hospital is an institution with a legacy of patient care and a true sense of place in the city of Chicago. We designed a center that embraces this legacy and expresses both enthusiasm for and confidence in Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s vision.”

The building…
“Despite its size, the new medical center is a generous building that invites people in and celebrates the tradition of Chicago architecture. We believe it will live up to the expectations and values of Northwestern Memorial Hospital.”

People response…
“When the people delivering health care services are happy in their environment, the medical care received is often measurably better. We endeavored to provide more efficient, workable spaces for medical personnel as well as a hospitable patient environment with welcoming public spaces and simplified wayfinding. The joy and satisfaction comes when you go back to the hospital staff see their smiles and hear how things are working better than originally thought.”

Building strategies…
“We had several major strategies for completing the design of this project, all geared toward flexibility. One dealt with the layout of the building and the concept of flexible clinical space that responds to changes in the way health care services are provided. The second focused on designing soft space or office space so that it can be transformed easily to clinical space. The third strategy centered on the framework for the building systems. Every system from mechanical and electrical to communications will support future changes in technology.”

Architectural Team
A project of this complexity and significance requires the skills of many individuals. For nearly 10 years, the firms composing the design team provided their people resources to ensure the project’s success.

Design Leadership Gyo Obata, HOK Rebel Roberts, VOA John Waugh, Ellerbe Becket Hank Winkelman, HOK Designers Erik Andersen, HOK/VOA Kelly Bradach, Ellerbe Becket David Buckley, HOK Anna Corbett, Ellerbe Becket Colline Hernandez, Johnson & Lee Jon Hoffschneider, HOK Dan Rectenwald, Ellerbe Becket Rob Reis, Ellerbe Becket/VOA Michael Repovich, HOK Medical Planning Marina Fromm, VOA Craig Hall, Ellerbe Becket John Kelly, HOK Bruce Larson, Ellerbe Becket Mike Medina, Ellerbe Becket Scott Nelson, VOA Tom Nicoud, Ellerbe Becket Duane Ramseth, Ellerbe Becket Dewey Schultz, VOA Michael Tchoukaleff, HOK Paul Tchoukaleff, HOK Don Woodhall, Ellerbe Becket Gary Woollard, HOK Project Architects David Archer, VOA Michael Chambers, Ellerbe Becket Jen-Shen Chan, HOK Dick DeLapp, Ellerbe Becket Steve Fichet, HOK Doug King, VOA Rich Lay, Ellerbe Becket Gregg Loescher, VOA Dan Loiselle, Ellerbe Becket Bob Lundgren, Ellerbe Becket Linda Montenaro, VOA Pete Ohlhausen, HOK Vic Walker, Ellerbe Becket Gary Weisinger, Ellerbe Becket Bruce Wolff, Ellerbe Becket

Technical Support Mark Browning, VOA David Dike, VOA Steve Parker, HOK David Swanson, Ellerbe Becket Project Management Roger Boe, Ellerbe Becket Michael Florell, Ellerbe Becket Tom Fromm, VOA Barry Graham, Ellerbe Becket Michael Haggans, HOK Jim Jenkins, Ellerbe Becket David Whiteman, HOK Interiors Robert Brendle, HOK Bob Dybas, VOA Mary Gorman, Ellerbe Becket Kim Gunther, Ellerbe Becket Christy Hester, Ellerbe Becket Faye LeDoux, Ellerbe Becket Ken LeDoux, Ellerbe Becket Martin Lockwood-Bean, VOA Meg Schweider, VOA Landscape Architecture Peter Bobe, HOK Chip Crawford, HOK Jim Fetterman, HOK Ken Howell, HOK Jackie Kotz, Jacobs/Ryan Assoc. Ted Spaid, HOK Executive Leadership Bob Degenhardt, Ellerbe Becket John Gaunt, Ellerbe Becket Jerry Sincoff, HOK Mike Toolis, VOA Vic Vickrey, VOA

Project/Consultant Team
Without these specialists, the project could not be completed

Acoustics: Shiner & Associates Inc. (Chicago)

Arts Program: American Art Resources

Audio/Visual & Auditorium Acoustics: Shen, Milsom, Wilke Inc. (New York and Chicago offices)

Civil Utilities Bridge/Tunnel Structure: Globetrotter Engineering Corporation

Construction Manager (joint venture): Power Contracting & Engineering Corp./CRSS (Chicago)

EMI Shielding: Vector Fields Inc. (Aurora, Ill.)

Equipment Planning/Procurement: Heery International

Fire Protection & Building Code: Rolf Jensen & Associates Inc. (Deerfield, Ill.)

Food Service: Robert Rippe & Associates Inc. (Minneapolis)

Garage Program Manager: Stein & Co. (Chicago)

Landscape Architecture: Jacobs/Ryan Associates (Chicago)

Loading Dock Structural: R.A. Libner Ltd. (Park Ridge, Ill.)

Materials Management/Pneumatic Tube Design: Kowalski-Dickow Associates Inc. (Mequon, Wis.)

Mechanical Electrial Plumbing Engineer: Environmental Systems Design Inc. (Chicago)

Pneumatic Tube Contractor/Designer: Translogic Corporation (Rolling Meadows, Ill. and Denver)

Security: Sako & Associates (Arlington Heights, Ill.)

Surveyors: Chicago Guarantee Survey Company (Chicago)

Telecommunications: Gene Burton & Associate (Franklin, Tenn.)

Telecommunications Systems Design: Nath, Lipsey & Burch LLC

Vertical Transport: Vertex Corporation (Roselle, Ill.)

Wayfinding: Steve Neumann & Friends (Houston)

Wind Tunnel: Rowan Williams Davies and Irwin Inc. (Guelph, Ontario, Canada)

Hospital Redevelopment History
Reinventing a Medical Center

A prestigious institution like Northwestern Memorial Hospital rarely has the opportunity to completely reinvent itself. Yet that’s exactly the position Northwestern Memorial found itself in over a decade ago, when its leaders began thinking about how to replace its aging facilities with a 21st century medical center that would reflect the institution’s values and vision for the future.

Most large hospital projects take the form of additions to existing facilities. Northwestern Memorial realized, however, that several factors had converged that would enable it to achieve much more. The organization saw an opportunity to push the envelope of health care design–to redefine who they were and what they wanted to be.

First, Northwestern Memorial’s association with Northwestern University–one of the United States’ most venerable universities and medical schools–had helped establish its preeminence in the health care field. Northwestern Memorial’s downtown location between Michigan Avenue and Lake Shore Drive, in the shadow of the Water Tower and John Hancock Building, meant the campus carried Chicago’s identity. Any replacement facility would have to acknowledge this connection.

Looking to the future, Northwestern Memorial realized that its core inpatient components were fragmented across four different campus buildings, some dating back to the 1930s. Though its inpatient facilities needed to be reconfigured, none of these buildings’ floor plates offered much flexibility for change. The U.S. health care environment, meanwhile, had shifted toward a need for less inpatient space and more outpatient-oriented procedure facilities.

Northwestern Memorial also wanted to consolidate its substantial ambulatory care physician practice–the Northwestern Memorial Medical Foundation–whose members, part of the Northwestern University Medical School teaching faculty, were spread throughout two dozen locations. And Northwestern Memorial needed to provide more space for independent physicians, who were generating nearly half the hospital’s admissions.

Northwestern Memorial Hospital, thus, had the rare opportunity to renew itself by creating a facility with an architectural form and internal planning concepts expressing the institution’s guiding principles that brought together all the contemporary spaces of a major medical center into one integrated framework.

In May 1999, after a 10-year odyssey of intensive planning, design, and construction, Northwestern Memorial’s vision comes to life with the opening of its new 2-million-square-foot medical center in the heart of downtown Chicago. The facility includes the 22-story Galter Outpatient Pavilion and the 17-story Feinberg Inpatient Pavilion. The two towers are fully integrated by eight levels of shared diagnostic and therapeutic services and public space.

Gary A. Mecklenburg
Gary A. Mecklenburg is president and chief executive officer of the 492-bed Northwestern Memorial Hospital and its parent organization, Northwestern Memorial Corporation.

Kathleen Murray
Kathleen Murray is executive vice president and chief operating officer at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where she oversees day-to-day operations. She is a member of the board of Northwestern Memorial Corporation. Murray directed Northwestern Memorial’s redevelopment project, one of the largest, most ambitious U.S. health care construction programs in recent history.

John Westcott
John Westcott joined Northwestern Memorial Hospital in February 1986 as vice president of facilities and engineering and as president of The Streeterville Corporation, the real estate and property management affiliation of Northwestern Memorial Corporation. Westcott led the hospital’s redevelopment project as vice president and project executive. In this position, he directed the activities of the project’s design team while working closely with representatives of the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation, partners in the development and construction of the Galter Pavilion.

Hospital Project Team
Those Who Worked Behind the Scenes to Make Things Right

Redevelopment Team
Gary A. Mecklenburg, President & Chief Executive Officer
Kathleen G. Murray, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer
Ralph M. Weber, Vice President, Corporate Planning
John Westcott, Vice President, Redevelopment Project/Project Execution
Eugene Principi, Senior Vice President Finance & Treasurer
Jean Przybylek, Vice President, Support Services
Jan Bultema, Executive Director, Transition/Move-In
Robert Hrudka, Director, Financial Management/Equipment Planning
Ricky Langford, Managing Director
Jud Pearson, Managing Director
Kristina Durovich, Project Manager
David Struck, Project Manager
Ted Scropos, Project Manager
Lynn Bernatowicz, Administrative Assistant
Betty Sellers, Administrative Secretary
Felicia Smith, Administrative Secretary
James Bicak, Manager, Design & Construction
Patrick Knightly, Senior Design & Construction Coordinator
Barbara A. Natal, Project Manager
Debra L. King, Project Manager
Nancy Hensley, Equipment Project Manager
John Tarro, Safety Director
Jermal Burnett, Safety Health Coordinator
Barbara Granner, Communications Specialist
Michael Lisak, Financial Manager
Jan Peterson, Assistant Financial Manager
Timothy P. Zoph, Vice President, Information Services
Paul Barry, Director of Networking & Communications Information Systems
Bud Vance, Director of Facilities Management
Bruce Morse, Facilities Management/ Plant Operations Admin.
David Weil, Director Media Services
Crista Lenston, Manager, Project Systems
Mai Shaw, Administrative Secretary
Marilyn Babione, Contract Specialist
Pam Ivers, Contract Specialist, II
Gisele Shaffer, Administrative Secretary

Northwestern Memorial Attorneys
Gardner, Carton & Douglas, Chicago Chris Hurley & Associates, Chicago Baker & McKenzie, Chicago

Northwestern University
William Fischer, Senior Vice President, Business Finance Jeremy Wilson, Associate Provost

University Architects
Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.

Northwestern University Consultant Counsel
Sidley & Austin, Chicago

Northwestern University Parking Consultants
Walker Parking Consultants/Engineers, Inc., Elgin, Ill.

Geotechnical Consultants
STS Consultants Ltd. Ground Engineering Consultants Inc., Deerfield, Ill.

Management Consultants
James H. Lowry & Associates, Chicago

Wayfinding
Steve Neumann & Friends, Houston

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