Diamond Schmitt Architects Incorporated, a Toronto architectural firm, has been selected to lead the planning, design, and compliance aspects of the St. Michael's Hospital redevelopment project. The project will include the construction of a new 17 storey patient-care tower at the corner of Queen and Victoria Streets, and the renovation of approximately 150,000 square feet of existing space.

The planning, design and compliance (PDC) team will prepare key documents that will establish the guidelines and performance requirements that the successful building team must meet when preparing their designs. The PDC team will also monitor construction progress and provide coordination and oversight services during the commissioning and completion of the project.

With the new space, St. Michael's Hospital will relocate patient beds from an 85-year-old wing and provide larger space for programs that treat some of the most critically ill patients from across Ontario. These programs include patients from the medical-surgical intensive care unit, and the largest adult cystic fibrosis clinic in North America.

Highlights of the project include:

• • Five new operating rooms, each large enough to include state-of-the-art medical imaging equipment. These "hybrid operating rooms" will allow surgeons to perform minimally invasive, image-guided or catheter-based procedures, as well as undertake open surgery in the same operating room.
   
• • Enlarged, state-of-the-art facilities for orthopedic surgery, oncology, coronary care and respirology, including the cystic fibrosis program, as well as critical care space for the coronary and medical-surgical units.
   
• • Expansion of the current Emergency Department, which was originally designed to accommodate 45,000 patient visits, but now accommodates 70,000 a year—a number that continues to grow with the population. This expansion will allow St. Michael's Hospital to continue to fulfill its mandate as a regional trauma centre.

Once the planning, design and compliance aspects are completed, the hospital and Infrastructure Ontario will issue a request for qualifications for a company to design, build and finance the project, using the Alternative Financing and Procurement model. Under this model, risks associated with the design, construction and financing of complex hospital projects are transferred to the private sector.

Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care are working with St. Michael's Hospital to expand and renovate the hospital, which will remain publicly owned, publicly controlled and publicly accountable.

Infrastructure Ontario is a Crown corporation dedicated to delivering some of the province's larger and more complex infrastructure renewal projects, on time and on budget; managing one of the largest real estate portfolios in Canada and providing real estate services, such as asset management and property and land management; and providing the public sector and not-for-profit organizations with long-term financing to renew public infrastructure.

Visit www.infrastructureontario.ca  and www.stmichaelshospital.com  for more information.

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