Seattle area projects breaking ground

Swedish Hosptial is building the first new hospital on the eastside in 25 years.

NSCC to Break Ground On Employment Center

Seattle - The new Center for Employment and Education at North Seattle Community College (NSCC) is designed to set a new standard in efficiency and service. It will be housed in a new building on campus and will serve the unemployed through five different community colleges, including North Seattle, Edmonds, Shoreline, Lake Washington Technical, and Seattle Central. Area employers will also be on site and participating.

Many executives and staff at the Department of Social and Health Services, Employment Security, WorkSource, the Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County, and the state’s community and technical colleges, have long recognized the frustration of job seekers. And they have been fully supportive of taking a new approach, co-locating, finding ways to make it easier and quicker for the un- and under-employed to get the help they need.

Designed by Schacht Aslani Architects, the 46,000 sq ft facility not only brings the four agencies together, but also fosters collaboration between them through the absence of departmental boundaries.

The building features multiple sustainable strategies including a 7,000 sq ft green roof, maximum daylighting, energy savings and water use reduction. It is targeting LEED Gold certification, with an anticipated 26% energy savings and 46% reduction in water use.

Nationwide Laser Scanning Contract Awarded to ESM

Seattle - ESM was recently selected by the US General Services Administration (GSA) to provide services for their Nationwide Laser Scanning IDIQ. As a part of the team headed by Architectural Resources Consultants (ARC), ESM will cover services in the northwest region, including the states of Washington, Alaska and Idaho. The ARC team is one of only five selected for this 5-year, $30 million dollar contract, and was awarded Zone C, which includes approximately the western half of the United States.

The contract calls for ARC and its team of sub-consultants to provide HDS laser scanning services to document existing conditions of GSA’s buildings and create 3-dimensional building models which will assist GSA in managing its buildings throughout all four phases of the facility life cycle.

3D laser scanning is the most effective technology currently available to quickly and accurately gather 3-dimensional data of buildings and sites. As the laser paints across an object’s surface it creates a “point cloud”. which corrolates to a project coordinate system that allows precise measurements to be obtained.

From the point cloud a Building Information Model can then be created.

Swedish To Build Hospital Campus On Eastside

Issaquah - A new medical campus will be constructed on the 12.5-acre parcel in Issaquah, Wash. Plans call for a comprehensive ambulatory care center, five-story medical office building and acute-care community hospital. Site preparation work began in mid-August and foundation excavation is slated to start in late January 2010, with the ambulatory care center and medical office building targeted to open in summer 2011, and the first phase of the hospital following at the end of first quarter 2012. The site and surrounding area were pre-developed by Port Blakely Communities and an expedited process for permitting is in place.

The master site plan allows for future growth as the needs of the community evolve over the next 100 years. Swedish/Issaquah is the largest and most complex health-care facility under development in Washington state. When fully operational in 2012, Swedish will create 600 to 750 new jobs for people working in the ambulatory care clinics and hospital settings.

Swedish officials also estimate the project will spur 250 to 300 construction-related jobs as well as 1,000 to 1,500 other non-hospital jobs at area businesses (i.e., retail, housing, city permitting, other contracted services, etc.). For design work on the project Swedish selected Seattle-based CollinsWoerman to provide architectural services and develop the campus master plan. Sellen Construction Co. is the general contractor. The new Issaquah Campus is being programmed to be the most energy efficient health-care complex in Washington state and one of the most energy efficient in the country.