James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital New Bed Tower and Infrastructure Improvements is located on a brownfield site within the Tampa VA campus and is approximately 220,000 square feet. The inpatient tower houses of 96 medical surgical private patient rooms, 40 intensive care unit beds, an interstitial mechanical space, assorted support spaces, and a new Veterans’ Canteen. Amenities include both indoor and outdoor dining facilities, a Zen Garden, a Healing Garden, and a large retail store. The lobby space attaches to the existing main hospital through a series of connecting corridors that separate staff, patient and public circulation. The project is also composed of 5,000 square feet of renovation to the existing hospital and the installation of a new generator in the existing generator power plant serving the campus.
The design of the new bed tower provides a warm and functional healing space for Veterans and visitors while creating an optimal work environment for staff. The Nursing Unit layout utilizes a unique arrangement of two offset cubes to provide a sense of identity and space for each Nursing Unit while preserving the experience for visitors. By necessity, a patient tower is designed “from the inside out” with a focus on the arrangement of patient floors. Clinical efficiency, on-stage/ off-stage circulation and the application of proven research are critical elements to ensure the design of a successful healing environment. Because the new bed tower is constructed on a very tight site on space originally used as surface parking serving the existing Emergency Department, the project site design documents included phased Emergency drive construction so that the existing Emergency drive remained operational while the new Emergency drive was constructed.
