Swinerton has recently been selected to provide program management and construction management services for the new California Northstate Campus starting with Phase 1A of the University’s new Medical Center in Natomas. The entire site encompasses 41+ acres.  The new hospital is approximately 730,000 square feet and 400+ beds with the first phase being a 263 bed 14-story teaching Hospital and Central Plant with Medical, Surgical, Gynecological, Pediatric, and ICU Inpatient Beds.  Diagnostic and Treatment facilities include comprehensive imaging including MRI services.  The surgical services include 24 Operating Suites.  Ambulatory services include emergency, trauma and urgent care services, supplemented by a helistop.  Ancillary services are comprehensive.  The Central Plant and parking for 1506 vehicles is a part of Phase 1A and strategies for providing sufficient cost effective parking (structure vs. surface) is part of Swinerton’s services.  With an estimated total project budget of over 1.2 billion USD, this engagement has many moving parts that require processes that can manage the magnitude of the engagement.

A significant challenge Swinerton encountered after a brief introduction to the project, was the lack of adequate communication and collaborative processes for durable decision making to further the design concept. This translated into design changes that were not fully vetted across the entire design teams which caused delays and redesign. Swinerton introduced processes for the project team (design, engineering and consultants) to collaboratively work together to make decisions that met project goals both in terms of schedule and budget.  The change in design process and meeting structure instituted by Swinerton were initially not fully appreciated until the benefits were understood, which came to light as timely approvals from the owner’s team and fewer design implications and rework.   Similarly, Swinerton also provided ROM cost and value analysis of proposed design elements to give the team direction on decisions that would impact budget, constructability, level of quality, patient experience, and schedule.  In a similar fashion, collaboratively introducing these concepts allowed for better buy-in from all stakeholders and better design solutions. Our value to CNU, and for all of our engagements, including what we anticipate for UC Davis Health, is our ability to analyze team dynamics, understand program needs, and how we can introduce processes that will lead the team to meet program goals and make better decisions, and ultimately learn from these innovative ways to work and utilize them as part of their tool kits for future engagements.  The project team for this engagement includes Jeff Gee, Kori Marquez and Mark Kiszonak all of whom are proposed on the UC Davis Capital Program Management SOQ.