This new 22,000 s.f. cancer center is on the ground floor of a new 90,000 s.f. five-story inpatient bed tower that provides increased bed capacity for ICU and med/surg on the St. Anthony North campus. While the client initially planned for the bed tower to be built on top of “floating” columns, providing a covered open-air drop-off zone, the design team presented an alternative to the client that allowed them to significantly accelerate their growth plans for the campus. Rather than building the tower on stilts, the entrance was shifted to an adjacent area, allowing the space beneath the bed tower to be infilled with a cancer center. This decision not only enabled the client to provide an unanticipated programmatic area but also allowed the design team to create a more striking entrance in the new location.

The oncology program occupies the entire first floor of the new bed tower and was designed with a dedicated entrance adjacent to the existing hospital therapy garden. The suite is configured to take advantage of shared waiting and ancillary services which are centralized between the Radiation Oncology and Medical Oncology departments. Rad. Onc. spaces include linear accelerator and HDR/CT simulation vaults and four exam rooms. Med. Onc. spaces include 10 exam rooms, 13 infusion chairs, and a USP 797/800 compounding pharmacy. In collaboration with MD Anderson, clinical areas incorporate multidisciplinary workspaces to support team-based treatment planning.