McCarthy completes construction for design-build parking structure

SAN DIEGO — McCarthy Building Companies, Inc., has completed construction of the new 884-space parking structure on the existing Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas campus, located at 354 Santa Fe Drive, Encinitas, Calif.

Scripps Health is the developer of the $10.3 million design-build parking structure, which replaced a surface parking lot. The project represents the first phase of a planned $200 million expansion of the Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas campus. Future expansion plans call for construction of a two-story, 60,000-square-foot critical care building that will house 27 emergency department beds on the first floor and 36 private acute care beds on the second floor. Farther-reaching plans include expansion for outpatient services, medical office space, and additional critical care and inpatient beds to serve the community well into the future.

The new 278,000-square-foot parking structure accommodates five levels of parking, including one subterranean and one rooftop level. The structure consists of Class II cast-in-place reinforced concrete, which McCarthy self-performed. The exterior features a combination of concrete and EIFS synthetic stucco. The scope of work on this project by McCarthy also entailed related site work, including landscaping, installation of irrigation systems, and significant rerouting of existing utilities.

An official grand opening ceremony for the new parking structure was hosted by Scripps Health on April 29, 2011, and was followed by a gala reception that evening to honor the private donors, staff, physicians, and community members who are making the campus expansion possible. Earlier this month, Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas received a $5 million gift from a charitable Rancho Santa Fe family, bringing the total amount of philanthropic gifts raised for the hospital’s growth plan to $25 million.

The construction site for the new parking structure was in the heart of the existing hospital campus, and therefore posed significant ingress/egress and subcontractor scheduling challenges. According to McCarthy Project Director Robert Betz, McCarthy worked closely with Scripps Health to devise and implement a plan that minimized disruption to ongoing traffic and activities at the hospital during construction, and created a highly favorable outcome. The project was successfully accomplished within budget and a short, 12-month construction timeline.
“An interesting aspect of this construction project was that it benefited a large section of Encinitas shoreline,” Betz said. “Working with the city of Encinitas, we hauled approximately 16,000 cubic yards of excavated, good-quality sand to Moonlight Beach to replace sand lost to erosion. The operation proved worthwhile and will ultimately provide considerably more play area for beachgoers.”

International Parking Design is the architect-of-record; Jessen-Wright was the structural engineer; E3 Design Group was the electrical engineer; B&P Associates was the mechanical engineer; and Latitude 33 served as the civil engineer. M.W. Peltz & Associates was the landscape architect.

For more information, visit www.mccarthy.com.