May 17, 2018

Team sought for $44M Bates project

Perkins + Will image from Bates [enlarge]

Medical Mile Health Science Center will be built at 13th and Yakima in Tacoma.

A new $43.7 million health sciences building could reshape Bates Technical College's campus in downtown Tacoma.

The state Department of Enterprise Services is seeking a progressive design-build team for the project, with a targeted contract value of about $34 million. Qualification statements are due Monday.

The 70,000-square-foot Medical Mile Health Science Center would be built where the 65,000-square-foot West Annex stands, at South 13th Street and South Yakima Avenue. It would house classrooms and simulation labs, such as bedside computer charting stations, for Allied Health and STEM programs. Bates wants the space to promote collaboration between students and faculty.

Allied Health includes classes in nursing, occupational therapy, hearing instruments, dental lab technology, dentures, dental assistant and biomedical technology.

Early designs for the project show a new entrance where Earnest S. Brazill Street now bisects the 6.2-acre campus. Brazill would be closed under that scenario.

The campus is a few blocks away from the hospital district on Hilltop, where light rail will be extended down Martin Luther King Jr. Way in 2022.

DES will select up to three finalists by May 30, and those firms will have until July 2 to submit proposals. DES expects to announce the scores on July 13 and sign a contract by Aug. 1.

If the Legislature approves funding, construction could start in July 2019 and the new space would open in November 2020.

Early documents show Perkins + Will did some pre-design work and Roen Associates did some consulting.

For more information, see the notice in the May 4 DJC.