Massive expansion of Vancouver General Hospital proposed | Daily Hive

Massive expansion of Vancouver General Hospital campus proposed

Concept of the Vancouver General Hospital campus expansion at 900-990 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation)

With Metro Vancouver’s growing population, increasing urban densification, and a rapidly aging demographic, plans are underway for a major expansion of the Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) campus to help meet growing healthcare needs.

If approved, this would be the single largest new physical addition to the hospital campus since 1991, when the shell of the Jim Pattison Pavilion tower was built.

VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation has submitted a new rezoning application to redevelop 900-990 West 12th Avenue — a 1.43-acre site at the southeast corner of the intersection of Oak Street and West 12th Avenue, immediately south of the Jim Pattison Pavilion and Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre, and west of the main parkade.

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The foundation in 2022 made a $100-million investment to acquire this site, which is currently occupied by a 1958-built, three-storey rental apartment building with 26 units on the west parcel and the 1972-built, 14-storey Windermere Care Centre with 207 long-term care beds on the east parcel.

Angela Chapman, the president and CEO of the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation, told Daily Hive Urbanized in an interview today that planning for this project first began in 2018. The foundation moved quickly to secure the site when it was listed for sale in 2021, and detailed planning in conjunction with Vancouver Coastal Health began in early 2022.

However, the road to achieving this project is contingent on significant fundraising to cover the substantial construction costs.

900-990 West 12th Avenue Vancouver General Hospital VGH expansion

Site of the Vancouver General Hospital campus expansion at 900-990 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Google Maps)

Site of the Vancouver General Hospital campus expansion at 900-990 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation)

Existing condition:

Site of the Vancouver General Hospital campus expansion at 900-990 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation)

Future condition:

Concept of the Vancouver General Hospital campus expansion at 900-990 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation)

The redevelopment would feature a 353-ft-tall, 26-storey west tower in the first phase, followed by a 329-ft-tall, 28-storey east tower in the second phase. These towers would house a mix of ambulatory healthcare, clinical, diagnostic, and medical office spaces. Once completed, both buildings would surpass the 295-foot Jim Pattison Pavilion, becoming the tallest structures on the Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) campus.

The first phase alone has a very preliminary rough cost estimate of $400 million.

“This is the most important capital project that we’ve ever undertaken in our history,” said Chapman.

“This particular project is of a scale and complexity that has never been undertaken by our foundation. And in fact, for a hospital foundation, it’s the largest of its kind ever undertaken in British Columbia.”

No timeline has been established for the longer-term second phase of building the east tower, but the west tower is intended to be a near-term project. If all goes as planned with fundraising, construction — beginning with excavation — could begin in mid-2027 and reach completion and open in 2031.

The west tower would be the redevelopment’s first phase, featuring about 545,000 sq. ft. of building floor area — nearly the same size as the Jim Pattison Pavilion.

The west tower’s base podium, the first five levels, would contain a surgical oncology unit, transplant clinics, hematology programs, seniors’ care, women’s health, complex medicine, and the Cardiac Innovation Centre. Enhancing accessibility and openness, an expansive two-storey public atrium would extend along the building’s West 12th Avenue frontage, providing a campus focal point and some hospital-serving retail space.

Existing condition:

Site of the Vancouver General Hospital campus expansion at 900-990 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation)

Future condition:

Concept of the Vancouver General Hospital campus expansion at 900-990 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation)

Above the west tower’s base podium, within an 10-storey mid-section of the building, a new 280-bed long-term care facility would be built.

These 280 long-term care beds would provide a significant temporary net gain in capacity, as there is an extreme need for more beds to free up acute-care hospital space used by long-term care patients across the street. Over the longer term, Windermere Care Centre’s existing long-term care capacity of 207 beds would be replaced elsewhere, before it is demolished and construction begins on the second phase’s east tower.

“The knock-on effect of not having [enough] long-term care beds is it blocks hospital beds as people can’t be moved to safe and adequate care outside, so they end up staying in the hospital. And of course, then that creates a knock-on effect into emergency departments and generally for the health care system,” Chapman told Daily Hive Urbanized.

Due to the rapidly growing senior cohort, the projections show demand for long-term care will remain high until about 2040, at which point it will begin to drop off due to demographic shifts.

Additionally, the new long-term care spaces would be built with the latest design features and layouts for more optimal patient outcomes — unlike the 1970s design standards found in the Windermere Care Centre.

“Every floor has 28 beds configured in a community, so with communal areas in between, gathering spaces, kitchen, dining, outdoor spaces on all of those floors so that people can access fresh air and the outside. So this is very much the current modern design for long-term care being used across Vancouver Coastal Health through all of the health authorities, I believe, in British Columbia,” she said.

The expansive lower rooftops of the base podium would be used as outdoor landscaped amenity spaces for clinical and long-term care patients and staff to better support their well-being.

Directly above the long-term care volume, the uppermost levels of the west tower would be used for clinical support and physician offices.

Existing condition:

Site of the Vancouver General Hospital campus expansion at 900-990 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation)

Future condition:

Concept of the Vancouver General Hospital campus expansion at 900-990 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation)

As for the second phase’s east tower, it would be smaller, with 340,000 sq. ft. of building floor area and smaller floor plates more akin to a typical office tower design. It would contain clinical uses for its lower levels and clinical support functions for its upper levels, along with a childcare facility.

The various clinical uses would be similar to what is currently found at the 2006-built Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre across the street.

“If you’ve ever been to the Diamond building, you’ll know that that’s kind of where many of the tertiary and quaternary care specialists VGH see patients who are not in the hospital, but who come there to see a cardiologist, an oncologist, a surgical oncologist, or have their follow-up to transplant. So it’ll be very similar to that type of service that’s delivered there, but we’re working on it being delivered in an even more effective way for better patient care,” she said.

Altogether, the two-phase redevelopment would have a total building floor area of about 885,000 sq. ft., including 558,000 sq. ft. of clinical space, 244,000 sq. ft. of long-term care space, 5,000 sq. ft. of retail space, and 3,000 sq. ft. of childcare space.

The overall floor area ratio density of the project is a floor area that is 14.15 times larger than the size of the land assembly. The project’s design firms are Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership and PFS Studio.

Concept of the Vancouver General Hospital campus expansion at 900-990 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation)

While this redevelopment provides a net gain in overall healthcare capacity, it also serves to consolidate some of the existing VGH-related space leases nearby.

“We want new, better, and different in this design. So that’s also our hope—that better-configured office space will come about, making it more efficient,” she continued.

“In other words, we’ll use less space for better human gathering spaces, and collaboration spaces for Vancouver Coastal Health. And similarly with the clinics, there will be better design for patient care, better design for accessing your diagnostics, for seeing your doctor, for waiting for your doctor… all of those things.”

When complete, Vancouver Coastal Health would lease the property from the foundation, with the net proceeds from the leases invested into healthcare improvements. Historically, the foundation has provided donor funding to support projects led by the health authority, but this time around the charity is taking the lead.

“We’ve heard from a number of donors that they think this model is very exciting and different. And so we’re going to be out talking to people, to philanthropists to help us get this project off the ground,” Chapman told Daily Hive Urbanized.

Both towers would be separated by a large mid-block public plaza, featuring landscaping, seating, a canopy, and public art.

The vehicle pick-up and drop-off area would be located mid-block, in the laneway on the south side of the plaza.

Existing condition:

Site of the Vancouver General Hospital campus expansion at 900-990 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Google Maps)

Future condition:

Concept of the Vancouver General Hospital campus expansion at 900-990 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation)

Regarding the optimal pedestrian connectivity between the VGH campus expansion and the existing facilities north of West 12th Avenue — an arterial road with heavy vehicle traffic — the application notes that City of Vancouver staff have raised concerns about the absence of a proposed mid-block pedestrian overpass to the Jim Pattison Pavilion or Diamond Health Care Centre.

The project’s design team has identified several challenges with constructing an overpass, including potential disruptions to existing hospital infrastructure, design limitations for mobility-challenged users, increased construction costs, and ongoing operational and security concerns. As a result, the current plan relies on ground-level pedestrian crossings across West 12th Avenue. However, just to the east, the area already features an existing overpass that connects the parkade to the hospital campus.

To support the expected transportation demand of the healthcare operations, 3.5 underground levels would provide over 300 vehicle parking stalls and more than 400 secured bike parking spaces. The overall regional accessibility of the VGH campus will be aided by the new Oak-VGH Station of SkyTrain Millennium Line’s Broadway extension, with this subway station located just north of VGH’s emergency department entrance.

While this foundation-led project helps address growing ambulatory care needs, Chapman emphasizes there is also a great demand for additional acute-care space at the main hospital site on the north side of the street.

In recent years, the foundation raised $60 million toward the significant surgical operating room capacity expansion and renovation at the Jim Pattison Pavilion, and made other investments to improve UBC Hospital.

Site of the Vancouver General Hospital campus expansion at 900-990 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation)

Existing condition:

Site of the Vancouver General Hospital campus expansion at 900-990 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation)

Future condition:

Site of the Vancouver General Hospital campus expansion at 900-990 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation)

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