Dive Brief:
- Skanska USA announced that it has signed a $206 million joint venture contract to replace a Marquette, MI, hospital for Duke Lifepoint Healthcare.
- Skanska's joint venture partner on the project is Closner Construction, with Skanska's portion of the contract worth $175 million. Construction is expected to be complete in October 2018.
- The 538,000-square-foot replacement facility will feature 243 beds, as well as 151,000 square feet of diagnostic and therapeutic space and 183,000 square feet of patient services. The JV will also build an adjacent parking garage and medical office building.
Dive Insight:
In CMD Group's second-quarter forecast, the construction data company predicted that construction of healthcare facilities would be a primary driver in the industry and would increase nonresidential starts by 6.4% this year. The American Institute of Architects also forecast last month that medical facility construction would increase by 2.3% in 2016 and 5% in 2017.
Skanska has won several major healthcare facility contracts recently, the latest being the $178 million contract to construct the new Women and Children's Health Building for Christiana Care Health System in Newark, DE. Skanska will replace a neonatal intensive care unit and expand the hospital's outpatient, lab, pharmacy and parking facilities. In June, the Lee Memorial Health System in Fort Myers, FL, awarded another Skanska-led joint venture a $200 million contract to remodel the Gulf Coast Medical Center, and in April, Skanska won a $62 million contract to renovate and add on to Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa, OK.
Minnesota-based Mortenson also made a June splash in the healthcare segment with a $485 million contract to build a Mercyhealth hospital in Rockford, IL, the city's biggest construction project ever. AECOM is the architect and engineer for the complex, which will feature a seven-story women's and children's hospital, a five-story multispecialty clinic, an intensive care unit and a Level I Trauma Center.
