LAC+USC Wins Two National "Best of the Best" Awards

LOS ANGELES – The LAC+USC Medical Replacement Facility earned top honors in the Healthcare and Teamwork/Project Management categories of McGraw Hill Construction's annual "Best of the Best Awards." This national competition pits the winners of McGraw-Hill's regional awards programs against one another. LAC+USC Medical Replacement Facility was one of 24 projects to win a "Best of the Best" award out of 273 total regional winners.

Clark, with joint venture partners McCarthy Building Companies and Hunt Construction Group, completed the new medical campus in November 2008. The 600-bed, 1.5 million square-foot facility includes an outpatient clinic building, eight-story inpatient tower, five-story diagnostic and treatment building, and a central energy plant. Built to withstand natural disasters and other emergency situations, the diagnostic and treatment building rests on a seismic base-isolation system to allow for movement while the central energy plant houses seven two-megawatt generators to prevent power loss.

The LAC+USC Medical Replacement Facility project team consisted of 60 people from three different companies who, at times, managed up to 1,200 workers on site. The team forged a collaborative culture to bolster morale and motivation over the five-year construction schedule. Additionally, the team divided the project into four distinct components and color-coded construction documents accordingly to avoid confusion.

Subject to numerous state codes that evolved over the construction process, the LAC+USC Medical Replacement Facility project required numerous changes to the original design. Despite $140 million dollars in change orders, the project team had zero claims upon completion of the project.

The LAC+USC Medical Replacement Facility will be profiled in the January 4, 2010 issue of Engineering News Record.