Richmond University Medical Center

Richmond University Medical Center (RUMC) is a 470+ bed healthcare facility and teaching institution on Staten Island. With over 2,500 employees, RUMC is one of the largest employers on Staten Island. In October 2012, high velocity winds from Hurricane Sandy caused significant impacts to the RUMC Campus, including extensive window, roofing, and exterior structure damage and four days of power loss. Following Hurricane Sandy, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) awarded RUMC a Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) funding to harden the facilities buildings against high velocity winds carrying flying debris by installing, impact-resistant doors, windows, and curtain wall systems to protect the openings on its five critical medical buildings, excluding the auxiliary buildings on site. The windows, doors, and openings protection project, or “Wind Resiliency Project,” intends to ensure continuity of hospital operations as a critical care facility and minimize its weather-related losses during a future severe weather event.

RUMC chose O&S to provide a condition estimate of the campus, develop a construction cost estimate, produce construction documents as the Architect- and Engineer-of-Record, and provide bidding and construction administration services. O&S designed impact-resistant windows, doors, and curtain wall systems in accordance with FEMA resiliency standards that exceed NYC Building Code standards to the Main building (administration), Sister Lorraine Bernard building (Primary patient ward), Seton building (central sterile, operating rooms, patient rooms etc.), Spellman (existing emergency room, operating rooms, patient rooms, food service etc.), and Cook building (secured, adult and minors psych wards). As part of the wind resiliency project, O&S designed a stiffening system around the existing windows of Seton, Cook, and the curtain walls and ribbon windows around Bernard to allow them to meet FEMA’s large and small flying debris impact requirements. In order to remove and replace the curtain wall systems and some of the windows, the existing air conditioning units, fire-stopping, and hospital will have to be removed and replaced in compliance with the current building codes. Deteriorated brick masonry, stones, steel lintels, shelf angles, and associated waterproofing repairs will be required around numerous building openings to ensure weather-tight buildings upon completion. All probes, materials testing, and design documents had to meet the hospital’s infection controls and HIPAA patient privacy requirements. Isolating construction zones from effecting hospital operations and occupied patient or medical staff work areas. O&S developed temporary airtight wall systems with hepa filtration negative air pressure fans, and RUMC approved infection control air monitoring sensors and reporting systems. The airtight walls will be used to isolate construction work areas from affecting hospital operations. Construction will commence in the summer of 2020 and is scheduled to last for two years. O&S will have two full-time on-site field engineers to provide construction monitoring and oversight for this $41 million project.