James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital Bed Tower, Florida: Photo Tour

Albert Vecerka

James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital New Bed Tower: A new circular entry drive, drop-off, and landscape improvements were part of the design for the project. The main entry drop-off has an elongated canopy and veteran waiting area with benches. The space is intentionally long for blast radius to reduce bomb threat, which also allows for more cars and space to congregate and visit.

Albert Vecerka

James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital New Bed Tower: Amenities include indoor and outdoor dining facilities, Zen garden, and healing garden, with connectivity back to the main hospital. Curving landscape spaces and native Florida plants create a softer feel. Benches and other seating within this natural setting allow space for social gatherings.

Albert Vecerka

James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital New Bed Tower: The main entry lobby has a greeter desk with waterfall-etched glass tying in the project's coastal theme. Seals behind the reception desk represent all military branches. A welcoming face when visitors enter the main lobby provides a warm greeting and directional/concierge services.

Albert Vecerka

James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital New Bed Tower: This space contains artifacts and items of historic significance, celebrating the sacrifice veterans make. This installation is under design. A retail gift shop is near the juncture where the main public elevators connect to the lobby.

Albert Vecerka

James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital New Bed Tower: Pervasive natural daylight creates an intuitive circulation system and a natural healing environment. Drawing on the seaside theme, textures, and materials in the facility evoke the local environment. The lobby attaches to the main hospital through a series of connecting corridors that separate staff, patient, and public circulation. The lobby features a servery, café, and coffee shop. An enclosed elevated walkway that connects to University of South Florida can also be accessed through the multilevel lobby, with above waiting spaces, which overlooks the space below. A large mural art Installation reflecting the coastal interior will greet guests at the main front door.

Albert Vecerka

James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital New Bed Tower: A new canteen servery will be available for staff, veterans, and families, with interior design based on the overall coastal theme. Open seating extends out to the covered patio and outdoor healing garden. An enclosed, covered walkway provides connectivity to the existing hospital.

Albert Vecerka

James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital New Bed Tower: Visitor waiting and respite areas on each floor welcome guests and provide amenities such as a kitchenette and area for TV viewing and vending. Each floor has a dedicated primary color for wayfinding, such as blues, greens and golds, that tie into the coastal theme palette. Wayfinding elements at the main public elevators extend into the corridor for better visibility.

Albert Vecerka

James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital New Bed Tower: The facility was upgraded to enable private acute care patient rooms from the original semi-private rooms. Generous windows allow healing natural daylight into patient rooms. All private medical/surgical patient rooms feature large windows, modular headwall units, ceiling-mounted patient lifts assisting staff to move patients, wardrobe desk areas, family zones including sleeper sofas for overnight stays. Personal protective equipment and staff charting stations as well as storage cabinets are located between all rooms.

Albert Vecerka

James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital New Bed Tower: By necessity, a patient tower is designed "from the inside out," with a focus on the arrangement of patient floors. Clinical efficiency, on-stage/off-stage circulation and the application of proven research are critical elements to ensure the design of a successful healing environment. Collaborative staff stations and individual staff substations enhance staff visibility. Each floor has a dedicated primary color for wayfinding that ties into the coastal theme palette.

Albert Vecerka

James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital New Bed Tower: The nursing unit is the most essential building block of patient care and the layout utilizes a unique arrangement of two offset cubes to provide a sense of identity and space for each nursing unit while preserving the experience for visitors and direct visibility of patients. Each room contains ceiling- mounted booms and patient lifts from bed to bathroom.

The James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa, Fla., provides primary care and specialty health services such as cardiology, spinal cord injury treatment, and mental health care.

The hospital recently expanded to move veterans from multibed rooms to private patient rooms by adding a 220,000-square-foot patient tower.

The tower houses 96 medical surgical patient rooms, 40 intensive care beds, an interstitial mechanical space, support spaces, and a new veterans’ canteen.

(For a roundup of recently completed VA health center projects, go here.)

Page (of Dallas and Austin, Texas) and Turner Construction (Tampa) teamed up for the project.

The design provides a warm and functional healing space for veterans and visitors while creating an optimal work environment for staff. That includes achieving clinical efficiency via on-stage/off-stage circulation.

Patient rooms and waiting and public spaces are oriented to maximize natural daylighting throughout. Many rooms overlook an outdoor healing garden.

The finishes are based on a natural coastal theme for a calming aesthetic.

The lobby space attaches to the existing main hospital through a series of connecting corridors that separate staff, patient, and public circulation.

The project will serve as the new front door of the campus, providing indoor and outdoor amenities for veterans and their families, such as dining, a café, and retail store.

The project will allow the existing hospital to decompress and modernize services, too.

It includes 5,000 square feet of renovation to the existing hospital and the installation of a new generator in the existing generator powerplant serving the campus.

Associated site improvements comprise an additional 78 parking spaces, a new circular entry drive and drop-off area, landscape improvements, and a dedicated foodservice dock.

Location: Tampa, Fla.

Completion date: January 2023

Owner: Contract owner, USACE; building owner, VA

Total building area: 235,000 sq. ft.

Total construction cost: N/A

Cost/sq. ft.: N/A

Architecture firm: Page

Interior design: Page

General contractor: Turner Construction

Engineering: Page (mechanical), Thorton Tomasetti (structural), Atkins (landscape/civil), SDI Consulting (equipment planner), MC Dean (electrical), PSI (geotechnical)