Cherokee Indian Hospital: Delivering high-performance healthcare flooring on budget and on time

The Cherokee Indian Hospital is a 150,000-square-foot healthcare facility serving all of the medical needs for the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians, from primary care to dental health, emergencies, procedures, inpatient services and everything in between.

As a replacement to their previous, government-owned facility, the Cherokee Indian Hospital Authority wanted to make this new facility all their own, intertwining their culture into the design of the building.

Using the Design-Build method of construction, the design, construction and subcontractors worked together to ensure every penny of the $80 million budget was used to maximize the facility’s value. And, ultimately, the team was able to deliver a world-class healthcare facility that the tribe could be proud of ahead of schedule and under budget.

The demands of the project: Matching design with performance and budget

Delivering artful flooring design while staying within budget was not easy, especially given the remote location of the hospital.

The size of the facility necessitated using many different flooring types to perform well in different applications, while the design required thoughtful planning and collaboration with the architect to make sure each room communicated the rich culture and legacy of the Cherokee people. And the remote location required much forethought as to when materials needed to be delivered long before installation began.

The demands of the project can be distilled into three challenges: design, performance and execution challenges.

• Design

  The Cherokee Indian Hospital Authority wanted to build a hospital that not only served the medical needs of the tribe, but which portrayed their culture and way of life. Essentially, they wanted the interior to depict the landscape of the Cherokee National Forest and the traditions of the tribe—a distinct flooring design challenge to say the least.

• Performance

  Longevity was a key concern when selecting materials and planning installation. Not only did the flooring need to fit the facility’s cleanliness, accessibility, durability and wayfinding needs of today— it needed to last long into the future with as little maintenance as possible.

• Execution

  The project took place in a remote area of the country with limited access to supplies, so pre-planning for delivering supplies long before installation was must.

Hospital flooring projects like this one also present unique challenges when it comes to material selection. There are many distinct areas within a hospital—waiting rooms, operating rooms, corridors, entrances, offices and more. And each unique area serves a different purpose. To learn which flooring materials are best suited for the different areas of a hospital and why, read our Buyer’s Guide to Hospital Flooring.

Our hospital flooring solutions and results

Working closely with the GC, Robins & Morton, and the design team, Design Strategies, Spectra’s team worked tirelessly through the preconstruction and construction phases to maximize the value of the Cherokee Indian Hospital Authority’s $80 million budget.

Hired as a cost-plus subcontractor, the entire Design-Build team trusted Spectra and relied on their expertise to perform this complex project on budget and on time. From the design phase all the way to handing the building over to the client, Spectra worked with the Design-Build team to maximize value and overcome design challenges to ensure the client received the quickest, turnkey product for their budget.

• Delivering artful flooring design that performs

  Due to the hard work and collaboration of Spectra and the design teams, the flooring was not only made up of high-performing healthcare flooring materials—it was an unforgettable representation of Cherokee culture.The entrance contains terrazzo flooring depicting trout and fish running through streams, deer tracks and bear prints scattered throughout, and a giant flaming spider underneath the rotunda. In the bathrooms, Spectra installed hand-cut tile, placed in a pattern to look like the Smokey Mountains. There were even basket weave designs throughout the corridors as a nod to the Cherokee tradition.

• Maximizing value through thoughtful planning

  From preconstruction to construction to handing the building over to the client, Spectra’s team was heavily involved with all of the decision-making with products and pricing. During preconstruction, Spectra even helped write the specifications, coordinating these efforts through monthly meetings, quarterly strategic planning meetings and weekly conference calls with the Design-Build team. Each week, the Spectra team would evaluate whether they were on budget, and pivot accordingly to make sure they were working efficiently and cost-effectively.

  In order to maximize the value of the healthcare facility, every dollar the Design-Build team saved in preconstruction was fed back into the project as a value-added feature—in total, $7 million in value-added features were pumped back into the project.

  Due to thoughtful planning prior to construction, and the collaboration of all teams, the Cherokee Indian Hospital was handed over to the client 92 days ahead of schedule.

Spectra Contract Flooring was central to the success of this project, engineering value at every stage of the project and working collaboratively with all teams. In the end, Spectra helped deliver this project 92 days ahead of schedule with $7 million in additional value-added features, all while remaining on budget.

To learn more about maximizing the value of your healthcare flooring, read our Buyer’s Guide Hospital Flooring. You’ll learn how to examine cost, aesthetics and installation time investment to find the best-value materials that will perform at your facility’s required level.