Sarasota Memorial Health Care System
5-year Campus Improvement Plan
| Over the next five to seven years, Sarasota Memorial will build a replacement bed tower to enhance our delivery of community health care. The first phase of this vital project involves relocating our energy center - a critical step in the overall plan. The following is a construction schedule and some answers to questions we have frequently been asked about our plans. |
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 Energy Plant Construction Schedule and Update:
Sarasota Memorial's new energy plant will be located on the corner of Waldemere Street and Campus Drive, about 250 feet east of Osprey Ave. The new facility is expected to be complete in the summer of 2009. Once the new plant is up and running, the hospital will shut down its old energy center located along U.S. 41.
Meet Tom Franco, Neighborhood Security Officer
If you have concerns about hospital-related activities, including construction, security or parking issues, please contact Tom Franco at 917-2058. He's available to provide assistance and answer questions.
Here's the latest construction information. Construction information will be updated on a frequent basis - please check the website regularly for the most current activities.
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Q & A
Q: Why is the hospital building a replacement bed tower?
We have long outgrown many of our aging facilities. Some of our buildings were constructed 40 and 50 years ago, when the hospital only had about 10,000 admissions a year. Now, we care for three times that many people each year, treat 85,000 emergency care center visitors and have crowded Mother-Baby and Neonatal Intensive units spread across the campus. We’ve discussed campus improvements for many years now. While renovation can no longer be delayed, the advanced age of our buildings, combined with our rapidly expanding patient needs and the requirements of new medical technologies, rule out simple updates and expansions. A new care facility, which will replace about 220 beds in the oldest parts of our campus, will bring the hospital into the 21st century in terms of the quality of care we can offer. Just as importantly, it will increase the quantity of care we can offer in response to our area’s rapid growth. Furthermore, the new bed tower will have the best hurricane proofing available to ensure continuing patient care even in the event of a severe storm. Today, if a Category 4 or stronger hurricane were to threaten us, we would have to evacuate patients from our aging buildings and hunker down - under crowded conditions - in the Waldemere Tower. Finally, the tower will help boost our percentage of single patient rooms from 30 to 70 percent.
Q: Where will the replacement bed tower be located?
The replacement tower’s location, selected from three possibilities, will be in front and to the northeast of the hospital's current main lobby doors, extending to the current energy plant. Cantilevered over Hawthorne Street, the building’s street-level entrance will make it easily accessible. It will be connected to existing buildings - allowing integrated medical services, greater convenience, increased speed of care, reduced crowding, better traffic flow and ease of future renovation. Of the three possible site options, it is the only one that links nursing units in the tower with services in existing facilities. Construction on this site will pose the least disruption to critical care programs and complies with planning/zoning requirements.
Q: Why are you moving the energy center?
We need to integrate the replacement bed tower into the fabric of our campus. Building a new energy center will ensure we can meet important contingencies in both the possible and in the predictable future. Today's emergency energy facility was built in the 1960s and has been repaired repeatedly in a piecemeal approach. The structural and functional integrity of the re-designed, relocated center will keep it functional during the hurricane we hope is not coming as well as meet the increased energy needs that we know are coming.
Q: Where will the replacement energy center be located?
Situated behind the hospital, the center will be bordered by the Bayside East outpatient building to the west, the Waldemere Garage/West Hospital Drive to the east, Pine Tree Office Park/Waldemere Street on the north and an office to the south. There are no homes adjacent to this location, which is set back 250 feet from Osprey Avenue. The maintenance facility and Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Foundation office, both currently on the site, will move to existing buildings on campus.
Q: Why was this location chosen?
The site was selected from eight alternatives, some of which were submitted by our neighbors for consideration. Our ultimate selection was based on considerable analysis that took into account safety, future planning considerations, constructability and impact on neighborhoods. The chosen site does not contain buildings that can be used to serve patients. It poses the lowest risk to safety — Tucked between the garage and Bayside East, away from U.S. 41, the location is the shortest distance to the campus core. This lets us safely run utility connections to the hospital without harming existing lines that provide power to the hospital. The site also will not generate additional traffic in surrounding neighborhoods.
Other sites did not meet the criteria - i.e. Rebuilding on the current plant site is not possible because we must have a functional energy plant at all times, and the existing center could not be shut down to permit construction of its replacement. Several other suggested sites have existing underground systems that prohibit safe construction, while other alternative locations serve the medical needs of the community or are even closer to residences.
Q: Will the energy center be noisy?
Sarasota Memorial will spend about $6.5 million to make the plant as quiet as possible. In fact, it should be inaudible to neighborhood residents.
Last fall, anticipating neighborhood concerns about the project, we commissioned a comprehensive study of possible noise emissions from the proposed center. Our acoustical consultant, a professor at the University of Florida, documented the current noise levels in the neighborhood surrounding the hospital and contrasted the current base-line levels with those envisioned (by the equipment manufacturers) with the operation of the proposed new energy center. The current four-decades-old center lacks modern noise abatement features.
To ensure that sound levels emitted by the new plant remain below Sarasota's noise ordinance as well as average noise ordinances for municipalities throughout Florida, SMHCS initially added $4 million in the latest sound-buffering design available —- silencers for pipes, concrete casing, barrier walls, acoustic louvers to muffle noise, and equipment pads to inhibit vibration, etc. In addition, the plant’s generators, which are potentially the noisiest components in any energy center, will run only once a month for about 45 minutes for state-mandated testing. Yes, during an actual interruption in power, the generators will run full-time so the hospital can care for patients. Otherwise, they will sit in quiet readiness.
In response to concerns raised at a recent demonstration of the plant’s proposed sound levels, the hospital plans to spend $2.5 million more for additional custom-designed sound-buffering equipment and design features, bringing the total cost of noise mitigation to $6.5 million to date.
Q: Will the energy center look out of place?
Surrounded on all sides by hospital buildings, the center will have aesthetic accents to help it blend in with existing architecture. It will “step down” toward Waldemere Street, so the tallest portions of the building will be closest to the hospital. We also plan to enhance landscaping on Osprey and Waldemere to improve the view.
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