Side Notes: Reimagining Women’s and Children’s Care at Avera McKennan Hospital

A hospital addition does more than just expand and refresh a campus—it can improve wayfinding, make room for new spaces, and prompt a broader rethink of how the environment supports patients, visitors, and staff both operationally and emotionally.

We spoke with BWBR Principal Jason Nordling about the Avera McKennan Hospital Women’s and Children’s Inpatient Addition and Remodel, an exciting project that highlights the complexity, collaboration, and powerful opportunities involved in expanding these services.

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Transcript

Side Notes Welcome And Setup

Matt Gerstner 0:00

Welcome to Side Notes, the bite-sized version of Side of Design. In 15 minutes or less, we'll explore one idea, one insight, or one conversation worth hearing. Let's get to it. Welcome to Side Notes, the bite-sized version of Side of Design. I'm your host, Matt Gerstner. Joining me today is Jason Nordling, principal with BWBR from our St. Paul office. And I'm looking forward to our conversation today as we talk about one of his team's amazing projects for Avera McKennan Hospital. Specifically, it's the Women and Children's Inpatient Addition and Remodel. Jason, thanks for making time to be here today.

Jason Nordling 0:34

Absolutely. Glad to be here.

Matt Gerstner 0:36

Awesome.

What Makes This Project Special

Matt Gerstner 0:37

So we're just going to get right into it. And I want to start by asking what to you is the most interesting or maybe even exciting thing about this particular particular project?

Jason Nordling 0:49

Yeah. That's a loaded question. There's, it's, this is a project that is doing so many things for this client on so many levels. It's realigning how people circulate in and around their campus. It's giving them a new front door, it's expanding a service line that is sorely in need of some some TLC in terms of facility, the facility side of things. And so uh they're really bringing the women's and children's services to the front door of their new campus. Yeah. Or of their campus with this new addition.

Matt Gerstner 1:30

Yeah.

Jason Nordling 1:30

Brand new front door for the entire campus. It'll change how people circulate uh through the campus, but it it's also challenged by being on an urban campus, you know, of about two million square feet. And so uh all of that created some complexities, which I know we'll get into uh here down the road.

Matt Gerstner 1:53

Yeah, yeah. So it's it sounds pretty interesting. So it's part of an existing campus already, and you're talking about remodeling not just the entrance, but you know, all sorts of different spaces inside as well.

Jason Nordling 2:03

It's it's adding on 220,000 square feet onto their existing campus and tying that back to their main hospital. So all the circulation and flows have to go back and forth between these two buildings. Yeah. So yeah.

Matt Gerstner 2:18

Wow, it sounds fascinating.

Jason Nordling 2:19

Yeah, it is.

Matt Gerstner 2:19

It's yeah, been amazing. Wonderful,

The Jewel Box Sky Lobby

Matt Gerstner 2:22

wonderful. So when you think about it, then what are one of like the details that maybe you love or reflects like the care and kind of creativity of the project and what's going on there?

Jason Nordling 2:33

Yeah. It's uh it's it's an interesting project in that it's women's and children's.

Matt Gerstner 2:38

Yeah.

Jason Nordling 2:39

You know, so a lot of times you'll see uh standalone women's hospitals and they have a certain look and feel to them, and you or you have a standalone pediatric facility that has a different vibe to it, right? The uh the design tends to be different. Because we're putting these two things together in one building, you can't design something that's overly women's or overly pediatric.

Matt Gerstner 3:02

Right, right.

Jason Nordling 3:03

Uh, one of my favorite parts of the project is uh we've got uh uh pediatric uh PEDs and pediatric ICU on the third floor. We've got the uh nenonatal intensive care unit, NICU, on the fourth floor. And on the northeast corner of the building, we've created what the team has refers to as the jewel box.

Matt Gerstner 3:24

Okay,

Jason Nordling 3:24

and it's literally a sky lobby that connects those two pieces, the third and fourth floor on the corner of the building that's dedicated to pediatric and NICU uh patients and their families. Yeah, it's a place of respite for families and parents, a place for them to get away a little bit.

Matt Gerstner 3:44

Yeah.

Jason Nordling 3:45

Uh, because those are really uh really tough places to be, right?

Matt Gerstner 3:49

Yeah, yeah, they can be.

Jason Nordling 3:50

Uh and so uh and it's a play area for siblings. There's an outdoor roof deck play area. Uh so it's really this really cool piece of the building uh on the northeast that is a I I think it's a real gift to those to the PED's and NICU families.

Matt Gerstner 4:07

Yeah, yeah. Was that roof deck area existing? Was it already there?

Jason Nordling 4:11

This is brand new. Brand new part of the part of the addition.

Matt Gerstner 4:14

Love it. So yeah, really, really cool stuff. And that's it's a hard thing to get on an urban campus, some outdoor space.

Jason Nordling 4:19

Yeah, indeed. Yeah. So you look for those opportunities where you can find them. You know, we we suggest things like that to clients, and and uh hopefully they're like, yeah, that sounds like a really interesting idea. Let's explore that, let's go down that road. Right. Uh so and we just happen to be able to implement that on this.

Matt Gerstner 4:38

So what a great opportunity. Yeah.

Building While The Hospital Operates

Matt Gerstner 4:40

So so thinking about like the entire process of this project, um, what would be one challenge that you and the team had to overcome, maybe?

Jason Nordling 4:49

Well, it's it's again, that's a loaded question.

Matt Gerstner 4:52

Oh yeah.

Jason Nordling 4:53

Uh anytime you're on an urban site and you're linking to an existing 24-7-365 healthcare building, right? It's fraught with complexity, right? They have to stay open, operational, everything has to be functioning and flowing. Um, and so I would say that has been the biggest challenge to the team is just site circulation during construction.

Matt Gerstner 5:20

Uh-huh.

Jason Nordling 5:20

How do we keep things moving inside their existing building while we're doing this uh addition? So there's been some, you know, disruptions to their campus, but I think all in all, um it's it's gone pretty smoothly.

Matt Gerstner 5:34

That's fantastic. And I can see that being a big challenge, trying to provide the least disruption possible. Yeah. But you know you got to do something.

Jason Nordling 5:41

Exactly.

Matt Gerstner 5:42

Yeah, very, very cool, very cool.

Long-Term Impact On Regional Care

Matt Gerstner 5:44

And then if you're to put on the hat and like look into the future, you got your future divining hat on. What long-term impact do you feel that this project will have? Yeah. Maybe the community or whatever.

Jason Nordling 5:58

Yeah, to the whole. I mean, it's a regional facility. Yeah. So it it really impacts the whole region within 200 miles. Um I I think the impact because we're blessed to have worked with this client for a long time, we know them well. Um, we've master planned with them. And so we know that this is a piece of that master, that larger master plan.

Matt Gerstner 6:20

Right.

Jason Nordling 6:20

And so it allows them, they've been uh they've been full on the inpatient side for years now. Literally, they are out of space, right?

Matt Gerstner 6:29

Okay.

Jason Nordling 6:30

And so uh by adding this space, they it allows them to expand this the service lines, the women's and children's service lines, which uh is great for them from a competitive standpoint with some of the other entities uh in their region. But it also allows them to decompress their existing campus. And so uh they move women's and children's from their existing hospital over into the new addition, yeah. And then it allows them to start remodeling and backfilling other inpatient needs into the uh older spaces.

Matt Gerstner 7:04

Right, right.

Jason Nordling 7:05

So it's it's given them that opportunity as well without having to build brand new again to get to meet their needs on the inpatient side of things. So yeah, that's that's a big long-term impact for them.

Matt Gerstner 7:20

I can see that. I guess it's being being a good one too, as as things go forward.

Collaboration Lessons From Complexity

Matt Gerstner 7:24

So now just looking back at the entire process, the results that BWBR was able to achieve through all this, what's one aspect of the project that you personally might carry forward in your day-to-day work or maybe even your design approach?

Jason Nordling 7:40

Yeah. Um I would say because of the complexity of the project and tying into all these existing systems, whether it's mechanical electrical systems or just the flow of materials, patients, staff, visitors, you know, to the campus, um, it has forced our whole team to really, really collaborate at a high level. Okay. Not just like us and our consultants, but we've been really, really uh tied in with weekly coordination meetings with the construction manager as well. We've been coordinating our design process with them from the very outset of the of the project. We've yeah, we started by pull planning the whole thing, the design process and construction process with the construction manager to start off just because it's so much complexity.

Matt Gerstner 8:35

Right.

Jason Nordling 8:36

Uh, we didn't want to stub our toe or miss a step somewhere along the way. And so um, probably a higher level of coordination with the CM, with the owner, with our consultants than we would normally have to have. But I think uh the team has worked so well together. Um, and I think it's really allowed the project to move as smoothly as it has, given the complexities of it.

Matt Gerstner 9:00

So that's great. It sounds like a winning process.

Jason Nordling 9:02

Yeah, yeah.

Wrap-Up And Thanks

Matt Gerstner 9:03

That's wonderful. So, Jason, that brings it to me to the end of my questions for this opportunity to talk to you. And I just want to thank you for the time that you've uh given me today and the insights you provided to some of our listeners on just an amazing project that we've gotten to work on.

Jason Nordling 9:16

Awesome. Thanks for having me.

Matt Gerstner 9:18

Thank you. And all of our listeners tune in, and we'll see you again soon.