Chicago-based Remedy Medical Properties recently won the 2021 HREI Insights Award for the Best New Medical Office Building of 50,000 to 99,999 square feet. Remedy’s winning project was The Steadman Clinic, a 62,768-square-foot orthopedic care clinic and ambulatory surgery center (ASC) in Basalt, in western Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley.
Peter Westmeyer, CEO of Remedy, notes, “At Remedy, we are very proud to be honored by the highly respected HREI media organization for The Steadman Clinic. Our team faced many challenges in developing this facility, but they used innovative, creative strategies to overcome those challenges and to deliver a state-of-the-art orthopedic center that is ideally suited for the beautiful Rocky Mountain environment.” He adds, “The Steadman Clinic in Basalt also will fill an important community need, making it easier and more convenient for patients to receive care close to home and the nearby ski slopes.”
The world-renowned TSC, with three offices in Vail Valley and Summit County, has a multi-year plan to expand in Colorado to improve access to cutting-edge orthopedic care, research and clinical trials. With its latest expansion in Basalt, TSC chose a high-traffic but small and challenging site in the beautiful Willits Town Center, a bustling, mixed-use, master-planned development with multiple requirements and restrictions.
To fit the required parking and robust orthopedic clinic and ASC on the .75-acre site, the development team designed the facility with three stories sitting on top of two levels of underground parking with 80 spaces and an additional 48 on-street spaces. The smaller site also meant it would have smaller floor plates, with less space for easily concealing building systems and off-stage activities, especially in the ASC. Remedy dealt with these challenges by locating building systems in the parking garage and giving considerable thought to how corridors were configured and located to maximize usable space and minimize patient exposure.
With the city requiring street-level retail space in the facility, Remedy had to avoid cannibalizing existing town center services, such as a coffee shop and spa, as well as impinging on valuable program space. Remedy solved this by convincing the city to approve MRI imaging services as a retail use.
In addition, the city required TSC to develop a community park adjacent to the new orthopedic center. To fulfill TSC’s vision of a facility that promotes wellness and an active lifestyle, Remedy designed the park as an outdoor extension of the lobby, providing a seamless transition between indoors and out. The facility also features glass curtain walls that bring in natural light and capitalize on the 360-degree mountain views, a rare feature for an MOB.
Remedy also installed solar panels on the roof to take advantage of Colorado’s 300 days of sun and create a more sustainable facility with lower operating costs. Finally, Remedy’s flexible platform allowed TSC to invest in real estate via a joint venture.
Remedy expects to deliver the project on time and under budget in early January, despite Rocky Mountain winter conditions, COVID-19 protocols, disrupted supply chains and a constrained town center site that complicated construction logistics.
