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Project UpdatesBARA Celebrates Official Groundbreaking of New Parkland Facility
NOVEMBER 12, 2010
For Parkland hospital, decades of leadership in public healthcare in Dallas and recognition as a forward-thinking public hospital throughout the nation has all been achieved within the same walls that were constructed in 1954. There’s no doubt it was time for the Parkland facility to catch up with the Parkland success. And that is what the construction joint venture team that consists of Balfour Beatty Construction, Austin Commercial, H.J. Russell & Company and Azteca Enterprises (known as BARA) is helping to achieve.
On Thursday, October 28 – with an audience of more than 500 people that included representatives from Parkland, city and state government, and the design and construction teams – eager hands holding shovels and jovial faces reflecting the excitement of the new beginning for Parkland, broke ground for the new Parkland health care campus.
Thursday’s groundbreaking ceremony was hosted on the construction site of the new Parkland health care campus. While guest speakers, such as Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, District 3 County Commissioner John Wiley Price and President and CEO of Parkland Dr. Ron Anderson, reflected on the hospital’s future image and past accomplishments, construction management of this project is in the hands of the joint venture team BARA.
Representatives of BARA filled rows of seats at the ceremony that included musical performances from the Parkland Choir and Grammy-award winner Myron Butler. BARA team members also participated in a time-honored shovel turn that involved a project team of more than 100 people – a number that reflects the amount of teamwork that private, public and industry personnel have committed to the project.
The new Parkland health care campus is being called, the hospital of the future, and will be the largest public hospital built in one phase in the nation – 2.5-million square feet. For a project this substantial, and with a budget of more than $1.2 billion, Parkland selected the design joint venture of HDR Architecture and Corgan Associates, known as HDR+Corgan, and the BARA joint venture as its construction manager at risk.
Completion for the new Parkland health care campus including the acute care hospital, clinic and administration buildings, and other support facilities and parking structures is scheduled for late 2014. BARA is overseeing construction of the campus’ major facility, the acute care hospital, and the east parking lot. The new Parkland health care campus will consist of 862-beds, spacious quarters for patients, their families and Parkland staff, custom space for hospital equipment and nature-space areas. At completion, this facility will reflect the quality of Parkland and Dallas. The construction of this hospital of the future is not only an effort to continue to be a leader in public healthcare in the North Texas and a role model in the industry, but also to provide an environment focused on patient care and comfort – the primary vision of the new Parkland.
