Photo courtesy of Hoar Construction

The 11-story rehabilitation facility is expected to be completed in early 2025 and is located in close proximity to UAB's existing Spain Rehabilitation Center (SRC).

Hoar Construction announced the topping out of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Medicine's Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility, signifying the new downtown Birmingham building has reached its tallest point.

The 11-story rehabilitation facility broke ground in May of 2022, and is expected to be completed by early 2025. Spanning 346,000 sq. ft., the new facility is located on 7th Avenue South, in close proximity to UAB's existing Spain Rehabilitation Center (SRC).

Once completed, the facility will include seven floors of hospital space atop four floors of parking deck. The building will connect to an existing pedestrian walkway and feature 136 patient beds and two levels of administration, conferencing and mechanical space.

"Completing a healthcare project of this size in a tight, urban setting is no easy feat," said Hoar Project Manager Patrick Rumore. "Our number one priority is to build this project with the highest of standards while also ensuring that nearby hospitals stay open and active without disruptions, and staff and patients remain safe. I'm proud of our team at Hoar for its dedication to construction excellence while also putting safety, collaboration and thoughtful planning at the forefront. We look forward to delivering this state-of-the-art facility to UAB next year."

Hoar's team continues to work on an active site in a dense urban environment, with major hospitals nearby including Children's of Alabama. To ensure complete safety of staff and pedestrians and that the project remains on schedule, Hoar is implementing strict communication and coordination policies so that materials can be delivered without disruption to nearby traffic or the construction timeline. Hoar also implemented building information modeling (BIM) in the preplanning phase, which is a technology used to create a digital representation of the project to plan processes and coordinate schedules ahead of construction.

"At one point, there were five total tower cranes within a three-block radius of our construction site, making for quite the busy work environment," said Hoar Senior Superintendent Mike Broadaway. "A congested construction site of this scale requires constant collaboration. Luckily, we have extensive experience with this kind of coordination and planning, which continues to serve us on this project."

Additional project partners include Gresham Smith as the architect. SSOE Group is overseeing mechanical, plumbing and electrical engineering, while MBA Engineers, Inc is the structural engineer partner and BHATE Geosciences as the geotech engineer. Hoar Construction has established itself as one of the nation's leading healthcare builders, completing over $1.5 billion in healthcare projects over the past 10 years.

Hoar also has served as the general contractor on a $4.5 million cardiovascular unit at Shelby Baptist Medical Center in Alabaster, Alabama; the new 170,000 sq.-ft. Uvalde Memorial Hospital in Uvalde, Texas; and a 144,000-sq.-ft. U.S. Veterans Affairs (VA) mental health clinic in Temple Terrace, Florida.

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