Bridgepoint Active Healthcare — renamed Hennick Bridgepoint Hospital (HBH) — is the largest facility of its kind designed specifically to provide care for patients with complex, chronic health conditions and those needing rehabilitation. With an average patient stay of three months, Bridgepoint's leaders wanted to create a campus of care that supports healing, accelerates recovery and encourages wellness.

Designed to connect to the surrounding landscape, the patient rooms — with 464 beds over 10 floors — are twice as big as those in the original Bridgepoint Hospital. The floor-to-ceiling bay windows provide an abundance of natural light and a variety of urban skyline views. Patients also have access to warm and welcoming amenities and social spaces. Additional destination points in the building encourage patient mobility, including a therapeutic and expansive rooftop terrace that provides panoramic views of Toronto. 

A PCL-led consortium partnered with Infrastructure Ontario and Bridgepoint Health to deliver the P3 Design Build Finance Maintain (DBFM) contract on a fast-track schedule. PCL drove weekly meetings with the client and project delivery team to ensure the project remained on schedule and on budget. Plenary Health will maintain the facility for 30 years.

PCL continues to provide unsurpassed project delivery capability and risk mitigation under the Public Private Partnership (P3) model. HBH is a shining example of what can happen when the right team is assembled to deliver on design and maximize the value of every public dollar invested.

The project has won 18 different awards that recognize aspects ranging from its innovative design, sustainability and community impact to its commitment to patient well-being. Perhaps no recognition is more prestigious than the coveted Governor General’s Medals in Architecture. The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) jury noted the important connections forged by the project: patient spaces to nature; hospital and city; the present and the past; and patients to health care professionals. The jury was also impressed by how the “project suggests many ways to address the often dehumanizing aspects of the traditional hospital experience."

The complex design involved a team of designers and architects including HDR Architecture + Diamond Schmitt Architects as the DBFM architects.

“HDR views Bridgepoint as an extremely successful project that continues to win awards,” said Tom Ditoro, Managing Director at HDR Architecture. “It would not have achieved this success without PCL’s leadership and guidance. We continue to look for and look forward to the opportunity of working again with this quality constructor.”

HBH is bordered on one side by the Don Valley Parkway and surrounded by the community of Riverdale, meaning one of the first problems the construction team needed to address was site access. With as many as 450 people on site per day, one gate for site access and no lay-down area, PCL had to ensure every delivery was coordinated and on time. For maximum efficiency, PCL deployed a “just-in-time" strategy by implementing a digital delivery board, much like the arrivals and departures screens in airports, which allowed all trades to book delivery windows and view upcoming schedules. This made communication on-site more efficient and kept everyone on the same page. 

The project’s fixed budget and schedule limited opportunities for design modifications. To maximize the client’s flexibility within these constraints, PCL used its unique Design Requirements Revision (DRR) system, also referred to as a “puts and takes” methodology. This lets the client modify the original design and track changes while weighing possible extra costs against savings opportunities. The system accommodated more than 300 design modifications – some done to reflect input from user groups – with zero net overall cost change. 

PCL restored and repurposed Toronto’s historic Don Jail into a modern-day administration and education space for hospital staff. The glass-walled hospital provides a dynamic contrast to the restored masonry of the jail. The team restored the brick, limestone and sandstone exterior with a light acid wash that cleaned while retaining signs of wear. The idea was to preserve what the building once meant while preparing it for future use. About 20% of the building’s heritage interior space has been preserved, and the administration building has a public access portion that creates a strong connection between the building and the community.

The design and build also sought to maximize sustainability. On top of the natural light in the hospital, low-energy lighting systems were added. The overall strategy realized energy savings of 29% relative to the Model National Energy Code for Buildings (MNECB) and a 32% improvement over LEED baseline water use. Integrated stormwater irrigation systems and a 98% waste diversion rate also factored into HBH becoming the first hospital project in Toronto to achieve LEED Silver certification.

“The PCL team was thoughtful, professional and very engaged throughout the process,” said Bridgepoint Health President and CEO Marian Walsh. “PCL also added creative energy and challenged us to rethink some important elements of the project. Because of all those things, and because of the relationship that we developed with PCL through the RFP, we are delighted to have them as partners.”

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