Hackensack Meridian Health
Jersey Shore University Medical Center Transformation

Delivering Advanced Medical Facilities with Thoughtful Design

Hackensack Meridian Health, a long-term client of LF Driscoll, embarked on a 433,400sf expansion for the region’s only university hospital: Jersey Shore University Medical Center (JSUMC) in Neptune, New Jersey.

Completed in 2009 after three years, it has become the largest hospital in the country with LEED® Gold certification. It includes new in-patient and out-patient buildings with state-of-the-art equipment, a new parking garage, a tri-generation plant with infrastructure upgrades, and an atrium to join these new spaces.

The expansion provided a six-story “Northwest Pavilion” that includes a state-of-the-art emergency department and trauma center with a dedicated elevator to the rooftop heliport. The pavilion contains three new nursing units, each with 36 private rooms comprised of 12-bed neighborhoods. A 36-bed ‘shell’ space accommodates future expansion: the space is constructed, but not yet immediately fit-out.

A four-story diagnostic and treatment pavilion houses six surgery suites, a new sterile processing department, kitchen, dining area, loading dock, and space for 12 intensive care unit beds for potential future needs. A four-story circular atrium joins the new pavilions to the parking garage area and serves as a lobby.

Renovations include an expansion to clinical and outpatient areas, including the existing emergency department, ambulatory care center, NICU, radiology, pharmacy, two electrophysiology procedure rooms, additional catheterization suite, a laboratory, and the addition of MRI, CT scanner, and diagnostic imaging technology.

Part of the project site was constructed over an encapsulated solid waste landfill. Designers mitigated the impact on adjacent residential neighborhoods by creating a buffer through an architectural fence, landscaping and lighting design. Our staff mitigated environmental exposure to shellfish hatcheries nearby and found economical, safe ways to dispose of excess landfill spoils through methods that included turbidity monitoring. To reduce costs, reuse of the existing landfill cap, on-site screening and the retesting of material allowed for minimal removal of solid waste from the site. These methods saved money and contributed to JSUMC achieve LEED Gold status.

Gold LEED Certification was achieved through conserving energy and water, reducing noise, utilizing natural light, creating cleaner air and recycling.

The expansion included a new central utility tri-generation plant to support the new facilities being constructed, in addition to providing enhanced service to the existing buildings. The system produces electric (DHW, HHW) and super heated hot water (via waste recovery system) to run the absorption chiller. LF Driscoll’s role included the start-up, commissioning, testing, and validation of the operating systems within the central utility plant and the hospital, and assisting the independent “third party” commissioning agent.

©Aker Imaging
©Woodruff Brown Photography