Children's Hospital Building | Longwood

Re: Children's Hospital Building

There was an approved office (administration) building associated with Children's Hospital to be built on Beacon Street near Kenmore/stalled Rosenthal project.

Anyone heard about this recently?
 
Re: Children's Hospital Building

$1.2 BILLION (excluding land costs) for an 11 story, 500K sq ft building???

Am I missing something there?

Maybe because it is a hospital? And it includes a new heart care center?
 
Re: Children's Hospital Building

Maybe because it is a hospital? And it includes a new heart care center?

The New Orleans VA Medical Center (Project Legacy) is a 9 building state-of-the-art campus spanning 1.7 million square feet and only comes in at $1 billion including all of the resiliency measures (like the giant domestic & sewage water storage tanks, so the hospital can sustain itself at triple capacity for up to a week).

Something is odd here.
 
Re: Children's Hospital Building

Shepley Bulfinch announcement. No mention of cost. Methinks the $1.2 billion may be the sum of all the new buildings / additions / modifications at BCH.

http://inside.shepleybulfinch.com/2015/05/shepley-bulfinch-to-design-boston-childrens-hospital/

That makes more sense.

So when the reporter from Bisnow.com wrote "Today Shepley Bulfinch announced that it's been chosen by Boston Children’s Hospital to design a new patient tower, with a development price tag of $1.2B, excluding land cost."
it was merely journalistic error. No prob, people are human. :)
 
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Massachusetts health officials Thursday gave final approval to Boston Children’s Hospital for a $1 billion expansion, dealing a blow to opponents who argued that project would undercut the state’s efforts to contain medical costs.

Children’s said its needs the Longwood expansion — adding 71 beds to the 404 beds at the campus — so patients have more privacy, doctors have more room to perform surgeries, and to cut down on wait times. The project also includes an eight-story ambulatory services building in Brookline.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...-from-state/SngVbwxcF0R8bNJxzECgnM/story.html
 

TySmith and a deep underground bunker [4 stories deep] for a powerful MRI machine that will apparently be used directly in heart surgery on neonatal and possibly even in-utero

I think that in addition to the new building on the campus, some renovations of the existing 30 plus years old buildings and the Doctors' Offices in a new and expanded campus in Brookline on Brookline Ave.

Add it all up and $1B+ doesn't sound totally absurd.

17 pix and captions from the BBJ
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/b...final-blessing-to-1b-boston-childrens.html#g1

COURTESY/BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL or BOSTON REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY

Children's has also gutted and redesigned space for behavioral health treatment at the Waltham site. The 12 beds will be for an acute residential treatment program for children requiring short-term psychiatric care.

The new 11-story, 445,000-square foot clinical building, planned for 55 Shattuck Street, will cost $950 million. Renovating space at the existing campus will cost another $250 million.

The building will include a new cafe, library, multi-specialty clinic, expanded operating rooms, and a consolidated heart center - which will include cardiac operating rooms, catheterization labs, cardiac MRI, and cardiac intensive care units. Additionally, new operating rooms will be added and a new neonatal intensive care unit will come online on the 11th floor. The expanded NICU, which will feature individual rooms, will have a total of 30 beds - six more than were available in the previous space. A complex surgical unit will also be in the new building. Four floors underground will provide support space, such as a pharmacy, kitchen and pathology labs.

"The next part of redeveloping the Longwood campus is once we get this building built, we can go back and redevelop the main building, which was built in 1988. At the time, it was state of the art, but that’s changed," said Dr. Kevin Churchwell, chief operating officer at Children's.

The new outdoor garden is going to be space that is now being occupied by asphalt and another area that is next to the ambulatory building. The open face of the new clinical building will be the outdoor garden, Churchwell said. The space, along with multiple indoor green spaces, are intended to replace the beloved Prouty Garden.

Existing functions in the Wolbach building, which include administration, quality programs and radiology staff, will move into the Landmark Building on the Joslin Diabetes Center campus. Though Children's will lease the space for five to six years, administrative functions aren't likely to return to Children's main campus, Churchwell said. The goal is to keep administrative services in another area, so that clinical functions can stay within Longwood.

Children's has chosen the architect and construction manager. The design is estimated to be finalized by early next year.

Moving existing functions out of the main campus will allow Children's to further develop areas focused on oncology, neuroscience and urology, Churchwell said.

In addition to garden space planned for the ground level, shown here between the new clinical building and the Fegan building, the new clinical building will also have interior garden space.

In addition to the garden space in the new building (shown here), the hospital is also planning on building a roof garden on the main building.

“We recognize that the importance of our green spaces, so there will be green spaces within the new clinical building," Churchwell said. "That will be green spaces all year round. A winter garden is an example of what families and staff can utilize. We will have our outside garden…we are also working through and we’re getting close to figuring out our garden space as we do the construction."

The $1.5 million project "would get us within the 10-year plan," Churchwell said. "We will continue to look at what does the 25-year plan and 30-year plan look like. There are possibilities and opportunities with research and ambulatory environment that we’re still working through."

Funding for the construction will come from a variety of sources, including revenue generated by the hospital, the endowment, municipal bonds, and philanthropy.

The hospital hasn't yet come up with a goal for philanthropic funding.

"Our plans to continue to develop our Waltham campus," Churchwell said of the 200,000 square-foot Waltham addition, which will cost $300 million.

The construction on the Waltham campus is estimated to start sometime next year and be completed by 2019.

The Waltham campus will include a 48 inpatient bed hospital, which will include orthopedic and sports excellence programs. Other surgical specialties and clinics that currently operate out of Waltham will be able to expand.

Children's has also gutted and redesigned space for behavioral health treatment at the Waltham site. The 12 beds will be for an acute residential treatment program for children requiring short-term psychiatric care.

The new 11-story, 445,000-square foot clinical building, planned for 55 Shattuck Street, will cost $950 million. Renovating space at the existing campus will cost another $250 million.
 
I'm all for the expansion (assuming it improves quality and access of care!). But what's up with that crazy weird facadectomy of the entrance columns of the old building?

I'd be all for preserving that building's facade in whole. In the interest of saving and improving lives, I'd be in favor of razing it if needed. But that's SUCH a bizarre compromise.
 
I'm all for the expansion (assuming it improves quality and access of care!). But what's up with that crazy weird facadectomy of the entrance columns of the old building?

I'd be all for preserving that building's facade in whole. In the interest of saving and improving lives, I'd be in favor of razing it if needed. But that's SUCH a bizarre compromise.

I agree, that is weird as hell looking. I think that preserving the entire façade still might have come out looking awkward, given the scale of what's being added on top. But just saving that one little snippet of the façade? That columned section of the existing façade depends upon the stepped back, simpler expanses of façade on either side, in order to have the balance needed for a good overall effect for those sorts of columns. Even if the new building above it were not so modern and contrasting, lopping off the side wings would have still been weird.

As it was done makes no sense at all. Just demolish the whole thing and move on. It's a fine looking old structure, shame to lose it, but if the developmental / economic pressures are such that this is all that can be saved, I don't see the point.
 
Is this the same addition that is going to destroy the Prouty Garden? What a waste all around. They have some really ugly parts of this complex that should be razed/rebuilt/with new facades which are going to be kept in tact... this is really destroying the human scale part that makes Children hospital a less scary place for children.

If they were going to do this type of thing, then they should have just relocated to someplace else with lower land and development costs and got twice as much for the money.
 
What a shame that it appears they are only preserving the columned entry way to this magnificent building. People in this town have certainly freaked out about far less..

Is that the Harvard Med School building, or another one that looks similar?

EDIT: Just checked on google maps. It's literally a couple buildings down from the Harvard one. Luckily, it's by far the lesser of the 2, but still a loss for sure.
 
There's been so much debate and discussion about the loss of the Prouty Garden, I never even realized that that old building was also on the chopping block.

Also, could a moderator maybe merge this thread with this one (Children's Hospital Expansion).
 
What a shame that it appears they are only preserving the columned entry way to this magnificent building. People in this town have certainly freaked out about far less..

There was a petition to the Boston Landmarks Commission and a whole public process around the demo of this building. AFAIK the commission decided the new building was a better way to carry on the mission than saving the existing. I'm sure it wasn't easy, but realistically, not every building needs to be saved. I agree with the later comments that retaining the little piece of the facade seems a little sad.
 
This fine, old building reminds me of a scaled-down version of DC's National Portrait Gallery. It's a real shame to lose such a handsome structure. Definite loss for Boston.
 
There are so many horrendous buildings, parking garages, surface lots and other underutilized space in Boston (including Longwood) that there is never any reason for a building like this to be lost.
 
There are so many horrendous buildings, parking garages, surface lots and other underutilized space in Boston (including Longwood) that there is never any reason for a building like this to be lost.

I normally am not rabidly preservationist but this building not only is a very good piece, but it also goes along with the adjacent buildings of HMS.

Children's is a shitty institution for this building, in my book... this building is not necessary, just more institutional fluff and a sad statement on the excesses of academic medicine.
 

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