Rancho Springs Medical Center expansion complete

McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. recently completed construction of a $37 million, 72,000-square-foot expansion of the Women’s Center and emergency room at Rancho Springs Medical Center, located in Murrieta, Calif. HKS Architects of Dallas served as the project architect and structural engineer.

McCarthy’s scope of work included construction of a two-story, cast-in-place concrete building featuring stud framing, plaster exteriors, and punched windows. The firm also performed site improvements for 5.5 acres at the property, including construction of a 252-space parking lot with associated site improvements.

According to McCarthy Project Manager John Metoyer, construction of the medical center was unique since it integrated 9,000-psi high-strength concrete structural columns into the 5,000-psi structural concrete deck—without cold joints. This presented a significant challenge to the construction team because the 9,000-psi concrete cured much faster than the 5,000-psi mix. The columns were poured monolithically with the deck, which required careful coordination and timing for the delivery of the 9,000-psi mix so that the two mixes could be blended where the concrete deck and columns join. McCarthy constructed mock-ups of the column-to-deck connections to determine the best sequence and method of placement.

"It was a tremendous feat and undertaking," said Metoyer. "We achieved this without any major glitches and our performance improved with each pour."

Other challenges on the project included securing tie-in corridors to avoid disruption of the campus and maintaining infection control protocol on the operating healthcare campus. While the team faced added scope changes during the course of the project, it successfully pulled together to get the job done on schedule. Hunter Associates Texas LTD, a TRC Company based in Dallas, was the civil engineer; CCRD Partners of Dallas was the electrical and mechanical engineer; and San Diego-based KTU+A Landscape Architecture & Planning was the landscape architect.