Prefab Lessons Learned
Date Posted: September 19, 2024
Posted In: Discussion, Offsite Construction,
From Offsite Builder: Regional healthcare network Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI Health) is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, and has facilities in the surrounding states. CHI Health is adding to its facilities this summer (2024) with a new 40,000 sq. ft. Immanuel Medical Center Family Clinic in north Omaha.
The design-build team of McCarthy Building Companies (McCarthy) and Hoefer Welker used prefabricated components for interior and exterior wall assemblies. This led to a dramatic savings of time and money.
Project Background
Before bidding on the single-story steel structure outpatient clinic, McCarthy didn’t insist on prefab. “We recommended it as a way to maximize efficiency, but didn’t dictate it when we put the project out to bid,” says Virgil Pope, a Senior Project Manager with McCarthy who is serving as the project lead. The contractor who won the bid, Falewitch Construction Services, was on board with the prefab approach.
McCarthy recommended using prefab for multiple reasons, according to Kris Montgomery, the Nebraska market leader for McCarthy. They include:
- Ongoing labor shortages in the industry
- Improved safety
- Outside influences such as weather
He adds, “It’s also more cost efficient. Our clients are always looking for ways to save money, and we as an organization are always trying to add value for our customers.”
The Right Circumstances
Most of the building’s walls – interior and exterior – utilized prefab materials.
- 95% of exterior walls, including framing, sheathing, air and weather barriers
- 75% of interior walls, including in-wall electrical rough-ins and backing
- Prefab mechanical and plumbing racks
While McCarthy’s Nebraska team has utilized prefab materials in the past, this is the furthest they’ve progressed in terms of interior walls. A few reasons empowered McCarthy to go further with prefabrication on this project.
One reason was that because the outpatient clinic was a design-build project, the team was able to make design decisions. While there was a lot of coordination and collaboration with the owner, the structure and design were driven by McCarthy.
“As the team got 30% into the design phase, conversations about including prefab came up,” Montgomery says. “Some elements of prefab drove some design decisions.”
The clinic includes 64 exam rooms, a radiology suite, a procedure room and a pharmacy. All exam rooms are laid out exactly the same way. Typically, plumbing is on one wall between two rooms to save money.
In this case, the design-build team decided to have sinks on the left side (upon entering) of the exam room. “This setup is less efficient [due to extra infrastructure] from a plumbing standpoint, but the prefab savings absorbed the extra cost,” Montgomery says. “As an added benefit, the same room setup enables CHI Health to more efficiently train their staff because every room is configured in the same way.”
Pope adds, “This is one of the benefits of design-build; the team was able to consider constructability vs. design.”