Dive Brief:

• Trinity Health has found a construction company to replace Mortenson Construction on its new hospital in Minot, ND, according to West Dakota Fox.
• Company officials announced the joint venture of Yates-Northwest Contracting will take over and begin work on the budget to bring costs in line with estimates. The new 208-bed, 850,000-square-foot campus facility will include a six-story hospital and clinic and a three-story behavioral health services facility, according to the Minot Daily News.
• Trinity terminated its contract with Mortenson in March because the healthcare company said Mortenson's estimated costs exceeded its projected budget. Company officials said the schedule has not changed as a result of the shakeup and that construction should begin this spring, with completion sometime in 2019.

Dive Insight:

Cost disputes between owners and contractors are a common, yet unfortunate, part of the industry. In March of last year, the joint venture of Skanska and AECOM Hunt was removed from the Washington State Convention Center project after convention center officials said the JV was not aggressive enough in pursuing cost savings. Skanska-Hunt and the WSCC eventually reached an $8 million settlement for the contractor's work, and the joint venture of Clark-Lease Crutcher Lewis has taken over.

Still, the removal of Mortenson from the Minot project came as a surprise, especially considering the company's expertise in the healthcare sector. Earlier this year, the company completed the 1-million-square-foot, $494 million Sanford Medical Center in Fargo, ND. The project was one of the largest in the history of the Dakotas and took five years to build. The facility will open this summer, and officials expect to serve approximately 4,200 patients a day across 200 medical specialties.

Last year, Mortenson also entered into a contract for another major hospital project, the $485 million Mercyhealth hospital in Rockford, IL. The hospital is the biggest project in the town's history and will feature a seven-story, 451,000-square-foot women's and children's hospital, a five-story medical specialty building and a Level 1 trauma center. 

Perhaps the most ambitious medical project with which Mortenson is involved is the Mayo Clinic's 20-year, $6 billion Destination Medical Center in Rochester, MN. Mortenson is developing Discovery Square, one of the center's six sub-districts. When complete, it will provide Mayo and private companies with space for research. The complex will also make room for firms engaging in product development, those needing commercial space and an urban bioresearch campus.