The 12-story, more than 500,000-square-foot tower includes an expanded emergency department, the region’s only Level 1 trauma center for adults and children. | Photo Credit (all): ESa
By Lindsey Coulter
ROANOKE, Va. — Carilion Clinic recently celebrated the opening of its newest facility, Crystal Spring Tower at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, expanding access to advanced emergency and cardiovascular care in Southwest Virginia.
The 12-story, more than 500,000-square-foot tower includes an expanded emergency department, the region’s only Level 1 trauma center for adults and children, and the Carilion Cardiovascular Institute.
The tower, designed to evolve with future healthcare needs, features flexible spaces that adapt to new technologies, patient rooms capable of supporting various types of care and procedure areas built to accommodate advanced equipment.
Carilion physicians and clinical teams helped design the space to improve workflows, reduce delays and enhance the patient experience. The emergency department, which opened in May, is double the size of its predecessor, making it one of the largest in Virginia. The department also includes a dedicated pediatric emergency waiting area, triage space and patient rooms, five trauma bays—including the region’s first Level 1 pediatric trauma bay—and a new helipad with direct access to trauma bays and operating rooms.
The remaining portion of the tower will house the Carilion Cardiovascular Institute, set to open in mid-July.
“Our board-certified physicians perform the highest volume of complex cases in Southwest Virginia every year,” said Marguerite Underwood, Carilion’s vice president of cardiovascular services, in a statement. “There are so many success stories—patients who, due to the extraordinary care provided by our cardiovascular team, live to celebrate new milestones. Now we’ll have more space to treat the growing number of patients who need sophisticated care.”
During planning, Carilion and the design team from ESa employed a clinical stacking method to optimize care delivery.
“During strategic planning and campus master planning, Carilion Clinic decided to consolidate cardiovascular services above the expanded emergency department, a bold move that we fully supported from a design standpoint,” said Sam Burnette, AIA, ACHA, EDAC, NCARB, principal with ESa. “Historically, the cardiovascular program had been spread across multiple pavilion additions, and space had become a limiting factor in key departments like cardiac catheterization and electrophysiology labs, cardiovascular surgery and the cardiovascular intensive care unit.”
Relocating the entire cardiovascular program into the Crystal Spring Tower allowed the team to modernize care, increase floor plate sizes and vertical clearances for sophisticated equipment, and create a dedicated cardiovascular entrance with valet service, garage parking and a connector bridge.
Stacked, exterior-facing lobbies and waiting areas on each floor help make wayfinding easier for patients and families. A two-level main lobby with natural gathering points was also designed to help families reconnect after visits.
“What sets this project apart clinically is the vertical stacking with the emergency department,” said Burnette. “We have four high-speed elevators that connect trauma and emergency department zones directly to surgery on the fourth floor and the cardiac catheterization and electrophysiology labs on the sixth. With this system in place, the estimated transport time from the helipad or trauma bay to a surgical suite is under three minutes.”
The structure was also designed to accommodate evolving technologies.
“For today’s interventional and imaging equipment, you need 10-foot ceilings and at least 14 to 16 feet between floors,” Burnette added. “We designed this structure with those needs in mind, using a universal column grid that works for parking spaces, trauma rooms, hybrid operating rooms and larger patient rooms.”
Other innovations include double-ended elevator banks, MRI-ready spaces, a pneumatic waste removal system to improve workflows and reduce infection risk, and infrastructure to support AI integration and wireless upgrades.
While the full campus expansion cost was not disclosed, the construction cost for the Crystal Spring Tower, including site work, connector bridge and three shelled floors for future beds, was roughly $423 million.
Design began in May 2019, with substantial completion scheduled for July 15. Renovations to tie-in areas will continue through September.