Baylor College of Medicine and CHI St. Luke’s Health partnered in the creation of O’Quinn Medical Tower, a 429,828 square foot, 13-story new hospital tower that includes a procedure suite, operating suite, pharmacy, imaging suite, clinical and administrative offices with a new parking garage addition. The tower is an expansion to CHI Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center’s McNair Campus in Houston, TX, an active hospital. EAB provided both Testing, Adjusting, and Balancing and Building Commissioning services on this project.
Since the medical tower connects to an existing hospital facility and is served by a chilled water system that also serves the existing, active hospital, this presented a unique challenge for our TAB and Cx team. The existing hydronic chilled water system was utilized at a low capacity until the new tower requiring chilled water was brought online. New pumps and a chilled water heat exchanger were added to accommodate the new tower load. There were multiple challenges faced with identifying obstacles and implementing solutions to provide functional operation with the mix of the new and existing combined system. These solutions came in the form of after-hours testing and frequent communication with the many parties involved.
Our TAB team operated under the general contractor while the commissioning team worked as a 3rd party owner’s representative. This allowed our team to provide great communication and clarity to all parties involved and facilitate weekly meetings with owners, contractors, and subcontractors from both sides.
The client was able to successfully meet city requirements for a Core & Shell stair pressurization system while simultaneously still progressing with building construction under a separate tenant improvement buildout package. This was achieved by close coordination and strategic planning between the contractor and EAB.
“The team made all the difference in this project. Everyone involved was dedicated to work together to find solutions, and not leave the project until a quality product was delivered.” – Dan Eckelkamp, Commissioning Project Manager
Baylor College of Medicine and CHI St. Luke’s Health could feel the difference on this project because of our team’s technical expertise and commitment to teamwork. The team on this project worked together to provide input, find solutions, and deliver an optimum operating facility.