Robins & Morton completed a 450-bed hospital built inside the Miami Beach Convention Center more than a full day ahead of a very aggressive two-week schedule, ensuring the facility is ready if needed before the anticipated peak of COVID-19 in South Florida. The temporary hospital is a state and federal partnership in response to the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Army Corps of Engineers selected Robins & Morton, one of the nation’s leading healthcare construction companies, to perform the work. The design included 400 acute care patient rooms, 50 isolation rooms, nurses stations and support areas. To turn more than 250,000 square feet of exhibit hall into a functioning hospital, construction crews had to install medical gas lines, duct work, plumbing, electrical and data wiring and patient-room headwalls with patient communication, equipment and oxygen connections.
Robins & Morton engaged more than 20 trade contractors from South Florida and selected RLF Architects of Orlando, Florida, for project design and engineering. More than 250 people worked on the project in two shifts around the clock.
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Everybody had a sense of purpose,” said Robins & Morton Senior Project Manager Johnathan Peavy. “It was pure synergy. We hit the ground running, and everything just clicked with the team.”
Robins & Morton received the project award on April 6 with an original deadline of April 27. At an April 8 press conference with Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County officials, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the hospital needed to be ready to receive patients by April 21.
“We already had a tight deadline, but we knew we could do it,” said Peavy.
It was an urgency shared by everyone on the project. “The team’s motto was ‘every minute is a life,’” said Scott Fote, Senior Vice President, RLF.
Robins & Morton, RLF and the Army Corps of Engineers did the final walk through April 18.
Robins & Morton has a long history of major healthcare construction in Miami and across Florida. The firm has offices in Miami and Orlando, with its corporate headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama.