Renovation Report: Carolinas Medical Center-University

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Editor’s note:  “Renovation Report” is a Mecklenburg Times profile of a property being renovated in the Charlotte area.

Carolinas Medical Center-University has been open for more than a quarter of a century and is the largest hospital in northern Mecklenburg County.

But things get old after years of operations. Utilities need replacing. Facilities need updating.

So, Carolinas HealthCare System is spending $1 million to renovate the hospital’s fifth floor, a part of the hospital that has acute-care beds and that hasn’t been updated for at least 10 years.

The floor will have new walls, flooring and plumbing, according to Kevin McCarthy, CHS spokesman, who said the renovation is solely a needed upgrade.

“These (renovations) will be based on both aesthetics and infrastructure,” he said. “The aesthetics will be walls and floors. The infrastructure part will be any plumbing, electrical or mechanical upgrades that
need to be made.”

McCarthy said plans don’t include changes in the number of rooms or nurses stations on the floor. The fifth floor of the hospital has 18 licensed patient beds, restrooms on either end of the hallway, a nurse’s
station and an area that CHS calls a “nourishment room,” according to McCarthy.

Upgrades at the hospital are projected to take more than a year to complete, but McCarthy said that is by design: The floor must still remain functional during renovations.

“They’re going to do a few rooms at a time just so that they don’t disrupt patient care,” he said. “Patients aren’t going to be moved. They’re just going to set up construction zones and work behind those over the course of a year.”

According to a CHS document, CMC-University has 130 acute care beds but will soon be down to 94 with the leftover beds being transferred to CMC-Pineville.

Project description: Carolinas Healthcare System, which owns Carolinas Medical Center hospitals, is updating the plumbing, electrical and mechanical systems on the fifth floor of CMC-University.

Address: 8800 N. Tryon St.

Project cost: $1 million

Square feet under renovation: Roughly 16,000

Total square feet: CHS did not disclose

Architect/designer: CHS

General contractor: CHS

Construction start: last week

Construction finish: October 2013

GUION can be reached at [email protected], (704) 817-1344 or on Twitter at @paytonguion.