BJC HealthCare has selected a team of three local companies to manage its 10-year renewal project of the medical center campus on Kingshighway Boulevard. The project – one of the most extensive construction projects in the region – encompasses Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine.
BJC chose Alberici, Clayco and SM Wilson, called the ACW Alliance, to serve as the project’s chief construction manager. BJC representatives said they have not announced a dollar amount for the renewal project but they expect it will create hundreds of construction jobs. Outsiders estimate the project to be near $1 billion.
BJC HealthCare will also be selecting a chief diversity consultant firm and a chief engineer in upcoming months, said June McAllister Fowler, BJC vice president of corporate and public communications. The bids are in, and the BJC leaders are deliberating their decision.
Fowler said the diversity inclusion firm will be an important member of the team, “insuring that we are always very cognizant of the opportunity to increase women-owned and minority-owned businesses (MWBE) and their participation on this project.”
BJC has not yet set its minority participation goals on the project, she said.
“We are going to work on that with the team,” she said.
BJC hopes to exceed the goals of previous projects, she said.
The campus’ newest building, the Barnes-Jewish Center for Outpatient Health, met a 20 percent MWBE participation on the construction side. Aside from this, BJC chose a 100 percent WBE/MBE joint-venture construction manager team of Tarlton (women owned) and Interface (minority owned).
With the new construction taking place over 10 years, BJC hopes to increase capacity among new minority businesses and diversity in the workforce – for the long term.
“When you just look at the number of construction projects that are about to be started in St. Louis – from this one to MSD (the Metropolitan Sewer District) to the Mississippi River Bridge – I think there is a real opportunity for women and people of color,” Fowler said.
“We already have excellent firms here – and I think we are going to see those firms to blossom and for other firms to enter the market and grow.”
Fowler said she found it interesting that during the RFP process for the architects and the construction managers, most of the teams included a diversity consultant.
“When asked why, they shared that you don’t approach a BJC project without a clear understanding of the commitment BJC has to diversity,” Fowler said.
“However, rather than having the diversity consultant be a member of the architect’s or construction manager’s teams, we decided to elevate the diversity consultant and make the consultant a member of the leadership team that consists of BJC, HOK (architect), ACW Alliance and the chief engineer.”
ACW Alliance joins executive architect HOK and program manager Jacobs. BJC leaders are also pleased that laborers have progressed to apprentices and then to journeyman status on several of its job sites.
“We definitely want to see even more of this occur with the project as we understand that sustainable, good paying jobs with benefits are important to maintaining strong families that in turn produce stronger communities,” Fowler said.
The project’s first phase will concentrate on the north campus, including an expansion of St. Louis Children’s Hospital. The hospital will increase the size of diagnostics and treatment spaces and convert some semi-private rooms to private rooms. Other renovations include adding more space for university faculty practice clinics, community physician practices, diagnostic spaces and expanding clinical care at the Siteman Cancer Center and other surgical programs.
The south campus will also undergo renovation and construction, building additional private inpatient rooms and developing programs in medical and surgical services.
Both phases of the project will incorporate improvements to parking, traffic flow and wayfinding for patients.