McCarthy, one of the nation’s largest general contracting firms, has completed construction of a new five-level, 295,000-square-foot parking structure for Sharp Healthcare located at 8025 Birmingham Drive in the Kearny Mesa area of San Diego, Calif.
Situated on Sharp Healthcare’s 37-acre campus just east of I-163 between Genesee Ave. and Frost St., the new $13 million parking structure is designated for use by the organization’s employees. The structure was completed within an aggressive timeline of under 12 months.
“Completion of the new parking structure will result in a significant decrease in congestion in the general area, together with greater availability of on-street parking for patients,” said Dan Gross, executive vice president of hospital operations for Sharp Healthcare. “At the same time, it will provide a spacious, safe, and hassle-free parking solution for Sharp Healthcare employees.”
Under the direction of McCarthy’s Parking Structures Pre-Construction Director Randy Meier, McCarthy led and coordinated the design effort for the new Sharp Healthcare parking structure, which features an open air design. The structure is constructed of cast-in-place concrete, with five levels of parking and spaces for approximately 1,000 vehicles. The open structure design minimized the fire protection requirements and contributed to the team’s ability to keep the project scope under control and within budget.
According to Ben Meyers, LEED accredited professional and project director for McCarthy Building Companies, McCarthy self performed the cast-in-place concrete work while utilizing experienced local subcontractors to complete the shoring, grading, underground utilities, fire protection, masonry, plumbing, mechanical, electrical, elevators, painting, site concrete, and landscaping aspects of the project. McCarthy’s experienced project team — led by Bob Betz, senior project manager; Lee Sudhoff, assistant project manger; and Bob Spurling, project superintendent — drove the project expertly to an early completion.
“It was the perfect finish to a practically flawless construction project,” Meyers commented.
With material prices escalating and fluctuating wildly in the marketplace, the McCarthy team moved quickly in May and June of 2007 to lock in pricing from all the successful bidders. With contracts in place early, the project was assured of holding and delivering the anticipated best value that was represented in the contract documents. Change orders accounted for less than one percent of the total contract value.
To create a structure with optimum operational efficiency and aesthetics, McCarthy assembled a team comprised of some of the nation’s top parking design experts, including Choate Parking Consultants, Ficcadenti & Waggoner Structural Engineers, Burkett & Wong Civil Engineers, Shadpour Consulting Mechanical Engineers, and Randall Lamb Electrical Engineers. Schmidt Design Group handled the landscape design.
“The short project time table posed significant challenges, but we were fortunate to have had the assistance of top-notch design professionals and subcontractors to ensure its timely completion within the given budget parameters,” said Meyers. “What also helped was the fact that our firm had several other construction projects underway in the immediate area, which gave us better control of site access issues and labor management.”
With an ambitious Conditional Use Permit (CUP) effort needed to move the project expeditiously through the planning process, in concert with the design and permitting, Sharp Healthcare tapped the expertise of Richard Miller, president of Metroplan, which helped guide the CUP effort through the intensive initial approval phase. From the Notice to Proceed date until the opening of the garage, construction was completed in just over 11 months.
The official ribbon-cutting ceremony took place on Friday, May 30, 25 days ahead of schedule, with Sharp’s Healthcare executives, including CEO Tim Smith and Executive Vice President of Hospital Operations Dan Gross, presiding.
Ron Hall, McCarthy’s executive vice president and leader of McCarthy’s San Diego office, established and cultivated the relationship with Sharp Healthcare that preceded the organization’s eventual award of the parking structure project to McCarthy in 2006.
“We highly value Sharp Healthcare as a very important client for us here in San Diego. All of us at McCarthy appreciate the trust that our Sharp partners, including Vice President of Campus Planning and Development Sandy Noon, Vice President of Facilities Lou Smith, and Project Manager Tim Crowe, placed in our team, as we worked together to deliver this design-build parking garage, under budget and ahead of schedule.”
McCarthy Building Companies is the nation’s 10th largest domestic general contractor (according to ENR/ Engineering News-Record, May 2008). With more than 140 years of experience, it is one of the nation’s oldest, privately held construction firms and one of California’s largest commercial builders. McCarthy has completed concrete and steel structures for nearly 400 parking facilities throughout the U.S., with parking spaces for approximately 70,000 cars in California alone. The company provides general contracting, construction management, and design/build services primarily for healthcare and educational facilities and parking structures. In addition to San Diego, McCarthy has offices in Newport Beach, Sacramento, and San Francisco, Calif., and Phoenix, Las Vegas, St. Louis, Atlanta, and Dallas. More information about the company is available online at www.mccarthy.com.
