The 18-month project at Comer Children's Hospital included afive-story addition a pediatric emergency department on the firstfloor, several floors of shell space for future expansion and thetop floor for mechanical, electrical, steam and chilled watersystems, says project manager Michael Mastin. "They were looking toupdate their facilities and have a new pediatric emergencydepartment," Mastin says. The pediatric emergency departmentincludes 21 exam rooms and various other types of rooms such astrauma, procedure, isolation and psychiatric examination rooms. Theproject also included a lobby with interactive children's games anda patient monitoring hub that allows for "real-time" data. Thehospital remained occupied during the project necessitating analert system if noise became too loud or there was a risk of thevibrations compromising patient care. "Since we were working nextto an occupied and live hospital, they had a system in place wherewe could basically shut down the entire job site in momentsnotice," he says.

Construction began on the addition at Comer Children's Hospitalin May 2005. Smith Group was the project architect.

At Swedish Covenant Hospital, Leopardo expanded and renovatedthe emergency room department, including the visitor lounge, airtreatment system and adding separate entrances for ambulances andthe public. Additionally, the patient triage area was enlarged and10 exam rooms and additional ambulance bays were added. AndersonMikos Architects was the project architect.