MMC Contractors provided design/assist plumbing, medical gas and HVAC services along with our local partner, Johnson & Jordan Mechanical Contractors for the new 617,740 SF Alfond Center for Health in Augusta, Maine.

The new regional replacement hospital with a 192-bed capacity, plans to employ some of the most innovative construction techniques in practice today. By incorporating preconstruction services including Building Information Modeling (BIM) with Lean Construction thinking, this Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) project has become one of the new leaders in bringing a project from concept to operation.

Early in the project planning, it was determined that extensive prefabrication would allow the construction of the hospital to continue through some potentially harsh winter weather. With the cooperation of the construction manager and other trades, our team worked on some of the lower floors during the first winter, to fabricate and assemble entire walls with medical gas piping, electrical and framing and have them prepared for installation on patient floors. In tandem with the multi-trade headwall prefabrication, the same teams constructed modular patient toilet rooms and as the modular assemblies became accessible, attached the modularized patient toilet rooms to a wheeled jack system to move them into place.

The project incorporated LEED and other Green Building principles, achieving a LEED H-C Gold certification for an in patient facility. A previous project constructed on the campus, the Harold Alfond Center for Cancer was the first LEED Certified healthcare facility in Maine.

The new Alfond Center for Health design includes:

• A single entrance to simplify way-finding
• Separate corridors for public and for patient transport creating efficient circulation
• Comprehensive diagnostic services adjacent to the Emergency Department
• 3 Super-sized operating rooms;
• 1 Cardiac Cath Lab;
• 7 specialty-sized general operating rooms;
• 6 procedure rooms;
• 192 private patient rooms on separate wings for behavioral health, critical care, general medical, general surgical, rehabilitation and women's health
• Outpatient facilities with extensive diagnostic facilities and doctors' offices
• Maximizing day lighting and patient room views
• Establishing positive distractions through garden views and other esthetic means

The building layout supports Lean operations with flexibility and modularity in planning, allowing for independent expansion of building components as needs grow.

Due in large part to the extensive prefabrication/modular construction plan, the hospital was completed 10 months ahead of the planned construction schedule. Once opened, in November 2013, the new hospital consolidated all inpatient services from its two existing campuses in downtown Augusta, Maine and Waterville, Maine. It now also provides all outpatient care currently offered for the Southern Kennebec region.. The site is approximately 172 Acres of rolling fields, intersected by Stone Brook, an environmentally significant stream and small tributary. The site has formerly been used as a dairy farm and most recently a golf course.

LEED Certification:  LEED H-C Gold for In-Patient Facilities