from staff
The Haskell Company recently completed a major addition to Baptist Medical Center South. The addition to the existing medical center includes a new eight-story patient tower with a ninth floor mechanical penthouse and a six-story parking structure.
The new tower addition features a 14-bed newborn intensive care unit that is an extension of the NICU services provided by Wolfson Children’s Hospital, a 24-bed nursery, an additional 10 labor/delivery/recovery/postpartum suites bringing the total to 22, 48 acute care beds, four intensive care beds, a new inpatient pharmacy and cardiology diagnostic area, along with an expansion of the existing central energy plant.
“South Tower D is a planned expansion of the 32-acre Baptist South campus, which is a full-service, state-of-the-art hospital designed to fulfill the needs of the growing communities in southern Duval and northern St. Johns counties,” said Paul Tyler, president of Haskell’s Commercial Group, which also provided design and construction services for the original Baptist Medical Center South facility. “Haskell is honored once again to be of service to Baptist Health at their Baptist South campus and contribute to Baptist’s mission of providing high-quality, affordable healthcare services to the Jacksonville community by completing the new addition under budget and ahead of schedule.”
The new addition contains approximately 222,000 square feet of new construction and renovation. It also includes the construction of a new 378,000-square-foot, 1,050-space parking structure. Haskell served as the design/build firm for the parking structure and as the construction manager for South Tower D.
Baptist Medical Center South originally opened in 2005 as a 92-bed, five-story, 257,000-square-foot, all-digital, acute care community hospital. It was designed to provide state-of-the-art health care to the rapidly growing communities of southern Duval and northern St. Johns counties. Since opening, the demand for services at Baptist South has steadily increased, which resulted in the need for a master-planned second tower addition. The new tower was added immediately adjacent to the existing hospital, which remained fully operational during construction and required special sequencing of the work to ensure the existing hospital operations were not affected by the new construction.
“When we opened Baptist South, there were already access issues to health care that existed in our community,” said Ron Robinson, FACHE, administrator of Baptist South. “This expansion will help us meet the needs of our current patients and future growth in south Duval and north St. Johns counties, while attracting new physicians and allowing us to offer additional health care services.”