Belmont Behavioral Hospital

Behemoth, in a word, describes the undertaking of a complete overhaul of an existing 6.3-acre, 4 building hospital campus while maintaining operations.

Eventually housing a 6-story, 252-bed replacement hospital and a 3-story outpatient building, the campus would travel through at least 8 distinct project phases, according to JJC’s early master plan, on its way to the ultimate site condition.  One early phase included building a bed addition that would be demolished in a later phase.  This project is a terrific example of an owner making a strategic decision to highly invest in a community for the long term.  The intentional shift of resources to support a project of this size is massive.  These decisions come with the necessity of great effort from the owner, designers, contractors, staff and even government agencies to plan key turnover dates and sequencing of construction based on certificate of need, census projections, services offered, patient and visitor access, financing mechanisms,  weather and too many other factors to list them all.  The project has achieved several big milestones such as the opening of the outpatient center (pictured next page) but the builders are still building, and the designers are still designing in our 6^th year with this project.  Thank you to Acadia Healthcare, JJCA and the rest of the design team, Alpa Construction and the rest of the contractors, City of Philadelphia and all the others who have been a part of turning this signature project into a reality.