Harborview Facelift Moves Ahead -- Project Bids Invited After Years Of Delays, Lawsuits, Conflicts

Harborview Medical Center expansion

-- Plans: The hospital will add an eight-story trauma center and nursing unit and four-story outpatient care center, among other additions, on west side of building.

-- Cost: $100 million for construction; $150 million including design, equipment and furnishings. Financed by 1987 bond measure and Harborview reserves.

-- Timeline: Construction contract to be awarded around the end of the year. Construction to start early next year. Completion scheduled in two phases, December 1995 and one year later.

-- Architect: Kaplan/McLaughlin/Diaz (KMD). Contract worth $12 million.

After years of delays and claims of mismanagement, King County is moving ahead with a $150 million expansion and renovation at Harborview Medical Center.

Project managers are accepting construction bids and hope to begin work on a new trauma center and other additions early next year - 6 1/2 years after voters approved a bond issue to pay for the project. Construction should be complete in two phases, December 1995 and one year later.

The project, administered by King County because Harborview is county-owned, has been beset with problems including a critical management audit and a lawsuit from an architectural firm that was fired in 1988.

The county hired a Seattle firm to both plan and design the project but decided in 1988 to split those functions. The firm, Waldron Pomeroy Smith Foote & Akira, was fired and later sued the county, settling out of court.

A management audit, ordered by the County Council, then concluded county staff had bungled its oversight of the project and hiring of the design firm.

In the years since, the project director's position has turned over repeatedly. Critics have faulted the county for hiring people with little or no experience overseeing construction work. Just last week, the county hired a new project director, Don Davis, a former Metro administrator with construction experience.

Current administrators insist the delays were inconsequential.

The reasons the project has taken so long, they say, are that the hospital's board and 80 departments rejected an original design; the work now includes an extra two stories in one section, along with other changes; and the center's role as a regional trauma center, handling the most critical emergency cases in the area, makes the job much more complicated than a typical hospital project.

Project costs doubled

"Think of Harborview a little differently than you see the others," said George Northcroft, director of King County's executive administration since March.

Despite the delays, the county has had use of $75.5 million in public money, the Harborview share of a $99 million bond measure passed by voters in 1987. The measure did not require that the money be spent by a certain time. By investing the money, the county has earned enough interest to roughly cover the added cost of building the additions now as opposed to years ago, Northcroft said.

He and project manager Doug Garner said they did not know the exact amount of extra costs associated with the delays. They estimated the interest earnings at $37 million, a nearly 50 percent return over six years.

Due to the delays and design changes, though, the project cost now totals $150 million including design, construction, equipment and furnishings. Northcroft and Garner, neither of whom have worked on the project since its beginning, could not say what the original cost estimate was, although it would have totaled $75.5 million plus some interest.

In addition to the interest income, the county will use $44 million in Harborview reserves and an $8 million loan from the county to cover added costs.

Ironically, because of the delays, the expansion is taking place at a time when many hospitals are laying off people and seeing a decreased demand for inpatient treatment. Technology and changing attitudes about health care have led to shorter hospital stays.

That trend doesn't necessarily apply to Harborview, though, because the center gets 80 percent of its patients through emergency-room admissions, Garner said.

That emergency focus is at the heart of the new construction.

The project will add a new trauma center, outpatient center, kitchen and a 138-bed nursing unit to replace an old one of the same size.

Workers also will renovate an existing emergency room, nursing unit, kitchen and basement, converting them into a new urgent-care area, emergency psychiatric unit, Medic One facility, pharmacy, sterilization department and storage/supply area.

Northcroft said the county will open bids from general contractors Nov. 18 and hopes to award a construction contract around the end of the year.

If work progresses according to schedule - the most recent schedule, that is - the new addition should be complete by December 1995.