Thouvenot, Wade & Moerchen Inc., Memorial Hospital-East, Shiloh

   Before Memorial Group Inc., the parent company of Memorial Hospital in Belleville, announced its formal plans to build a new hospital in Shiloh, the engineering firm of Thouvenot, Wade and Moerchen Inc. had already been hard at work on the project.
   TWM was brought in early on to assist with site analysis, site planning and due diligence. As with most development projects, resourceful solutions were needed to address site-specific planning and design elements, according to Dana Link, TWM project engineer.
   One planning element with which TWM assisted was zoning, Link says. While the property did not need to be rezoned – it was zoned Planned Business – it did have to go through a process through which the land usage, development plan and other institutional issues specific to hospitals needed to be approved. TWM successfully managed that process for the hospital.
   Another element was an old lake and dam on the property that had a failing dam embankment. Initially the hospital had hoped to use the lake for stormwater detention but the soils in the dam embankment were unstable, requiring reconstruction of the dam. TWM designed the new dam embankment and spillway system and guided it through the state permitting process. The work of building that new lake, says Link, is nearly completed providing the needed stormwater detention for the site.
   Access to a viable sanitary sewer system required the most resourceful solution, Link says. While the property is located at Frank Scott Parkway East and Cross St. on the south side of I-64 in Shiloh, the most cost-effective, long-term solution was to extend a sanitary sewer line north across Interstate 64 to O’Fallon.
   TWM also performed the land surveying for the project including an ALTA (American Land Title Association) survey, a topographic survey and a boundary survey. Armed with that base information, TWM – in conjunction with architectural firm HDR – was able to develop a site design that included parking, drive lanes, drainage and utilities and created a grading plan that balanced the site and minimized the need to haul in fill or remove earth materials from the site.
   Construction on the hospital itself is scheduled to begin this month and is expected to be completed in late 2015. The overall project is projected to cost $124 million. Plans include a five-story hospital with 94 private patient suites, cardiac catheterization and gastrointestinal labs and a pharmacy.
   The project will only consume about one-third of the 94-acre site, leaving ample room for future additions to the campus. It will have two ingress and egress points, both from Cross St., with left-turn lanes at both entrances and signalization at one entrance. TWM is also designing left-turn lane improvements to Cross St.
   TWM will continue to be involved throughout construction, staking the site for the contractor, reviewing drawings and change orders and coordinating with utilities.
   Memorial Hospital spokespeople have made it clear that Memorial Hospital-East will be a satellite to the main campus in Belleville. Following the opening of the new facility, patient rooms at the main campus will be converted to private rooms, leaving 216 private patient rooms in Belleville. Memorial recently added an 85,000-square-foot orthopedic and neurosciences center to its Belleville campus, for which TWM also provided engineering services.