UMCP selects architects

The University Medical Center at Princeton (UMCP) has announced the selection of architects and consultants to work on creating a facility on the new site.

Six months after deciding to move from its Witherspoon Street site to a location off Route 1, UMCP has hired healthcare architectural firm Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum and West Windsor firm Hillier Architecture to design a medical center that will incorporate current technology and allow for future innovations, the Princeton Packet reported.

"Technological advances occur so rapidly that it is difficult to project what technology will exist when the new hospital opens in five years," hospital spokesman Chris Johnson said. "However, the hospital is being designed so that we will have the flexibility to keep up with current technology and continue to offer the best possible care for our patients."

Though UMCP has yet to announce the location of the site selected for construction, the hospital's administration is starting to plan for its new facility. Estimated to cost $250 million, the new hospital center will be on a site of about 50 acres, more than four times the size of the current 12-acre site.

More than 60 percent of the current hospital's facilities are at least 25 years old. Heating, air conditioning and plumbing systems in the hospitals are nearing the end of their useful lives.

In February, the center's trustees announced that the hospital would relocate to a new, state-of-the-art facility within the next five years. Given that the new facility is not slated to open for another five years, however, planners have been tasked with finding a way of planning for the future with today's technology.

Hospital officials also want to leave room for future growth so that, decades from now, the hospital will be able to expand.

"We are looking to build New Jersey's first hospital designed with environmental concerns specifically in mind," Johnson said. "This could be a model project in terms of developing a green, environmentally-friendly hospital. Only one other model of the type we are currently considering exists in the U.S."

The new facility will address the dire need for more space to accommodate new clinical technology and a significant growth in patient volume. The number of patients utilizing UMCP's services has increased by 15 percent over the past two years.

The issue of space is central to this upcoming move. For instance, the Emergency Department was designed to accommodate 27,000 visits each year but there were more than 35,000 visits in 2004, and that number is expected to continue increasing.

Additionally, there is limited parking on-site, and because providing parking spaces for patients and visitors is a top priority, over 200 employees now park off-site and take shuttle buses to reach the hospital.

It is definite that the new site will be within six miles of the hospital's current location on Witherspoon Street, but the specific site has not yet been chosen. That decision is expected to be made within the next four weeks.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

The site selection will be made based on the strategic planning process led by the senior management team of the Princeton HealthCare System. They worked closely with nationally recognized expert consultants including Katz Consulting for healthcare planning, Kaufmann Hall financial consultants, Claritas for demographic data, Solucient for healthcare data and Grenzebach Glier fundraising consultants.