Wisconsin Clinic Prepares for November Opening
MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. — Ryan Companies US Inc. (Ryan) is nearing completion on the new Froedtert Health Medical Group-Menomonee Falls Clinic in Menonomee Falls, Wis. — a project that has been in the works for quite some time. Construction of the core and shell will wrap up soon and occupancy is expected in November.
“The focus for our construction team is now on the interior build out, which will be starting in April and finishing up in November,” said Jim McDonald, vice president of development for Ryan.
The new building replaces Froedtert’s existing outdated facility located directly across the street. The five-story, 145,000-square-foot building will cost approximately $25 million and occupy an 11-acre site.
Ryan owns the land and is the project’s owner, developer and design-builder. The company will lease the building to Froedtert and also provide property management services. Chicago-based Wright Heerema Architects designed the core and shell, while Anderson Mikos Architects of Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., is the architect for the interior buildout. Additional members of the project team include TGRWA for structural engineering and GRAEF-USA for civil engineering and landscape architecture.
The Menomonee Falls Clinic will include primary care and specialty services and house more than 90 physicians and providers to complement the health services provided at Community Memorial Hospital. More than 250 staff members will be employed at the clinic when it opens.
The project utilizes sustainable design and construction practices but will not submit paperwork for LEED certification.
The high-performance, environmentally friendly building features a healthy indoor environment. The clinic’s exterior will be predominantly glass with architectural pre-cast concrete accents. Energy use is minimized with high-performance glazing systems and increased thermal insulation on both the walls. Potable water is conserved with low-flow toilets, other water-saving plumbing fixtures, and sustainable, non-intrusive native plantings that require no permanent irrigation. The project incorporates recycled materials in many of the building’s aspects including millwork, insulation, carpeting, gypsum board, aluminum framing, concrete and steel.
The project faced obstacles unrelated to typical construction hurdles.
“I think the challenges with this project were related to getting a project developed in a tumultuous economic environment. We bought the ground in 2008, right when everything was falling apart with the economy. We worked through some project delay and ultimately got the building built due to the commitments from the village, Froedtert and Ryan. You weren’t seeing a lot of building built over the last three years, and for 140,000 square feet to be constructed in Menomonee Falls, that’s something to be said for the village, Froedtert and Ryan. That was probably the greatest challenge,” said McDonald.
In its first 12 years of operation, Ryan’s Great Lakes region has completed more than $1 billion in projects for customers such as Deere & Co., Isle of Capri, Target Corp., Dominick’s, C.H. Robinson, Cisco Systems, Hitachi, Iron Mountain and Kraft/Cadbury. Ryan operates throughout the United States with offices in the Midwest, Southwest, Great Lakes and Southeast regions. Ryan has completed a number of healthcare projects nationwide, and this is its third Milwaukee project with Froedtert.
“We have done a significant amount of work with Mercy Health in Iowa, Fairview Health in Minneapolis, and then we’ve done n number of non-system-anchored medical office buildings in the southwest. We’ve also done some medical work in Chicago and Milwaukee,” said McDonald.