by Brianna Crandall — April 27, 2020 — Stantec, a global integrated design firm, is providing design and engineering services for the temporary conversion of a portion of the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago into an alternate care facility (ACF) for novel coronavirus (COVID-19) patients. The facility will have the capacity to treat up to 3,000 low-to-moderate-acuity patients across three of the convention center’s halls, where patients will be separated by level of care required. Walsh Construction is the contractor for the project.
Stantec is providing design and engineering services to temporarily convert part of McCormick Place Convention Center into an alternate care facility for COVID-19 patients. Image courtesy Stantec
The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA) in association with the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) will direct the conversion of McCormick Place into a facility focused on patient care, infection control, fire protection, and life safety. The alternate care facility is designed to relieve pressure on the hospital system by freeing up beds for more patients with severe COVID-19 cases in anticipation of the surge in positive COVID-19 diagnoses to come.
The temporary field hospital was expected to be complete by April 24, while construction on the first 500 beds was completed on April 3.
Douglas King, AIA, NCARB, ACHA, healthcare principal at Stantec, stated:
We need to quickly and efficiently leverage our existing spaces and infrastructure, to allow our healthcare professionals to focus on providing care in this time of crisis. Our team at Stantec is proud to support this mission in our local Chicago community, and we hope it will serve as a model across the country.
Stantec is supporting rapid response solutions by healthcare organizations during the COVID-19 crisis. Stantec says its health sector team has programmed, designed, and planned some of the most complex healthcare solutions in the world. The firm’s integrated teams focus on lean operations, quality care environments, and efficient building systems to create flexible and adaptable care platforms.
For more information about Stantec’s and other companies’ response to COVID-19, visit the COVID-19: Ideas and Expertise page on Stantec’s website. The page includes such resources as guidance for keeping people safe at work during COVID-19, transitioning to recovery while preparing for a second wave of COVID-19, designing and planning for pandemic prevention, and more.
