Healthcare

Our healthcare team is gearing up for a transformative four-year project at Legacy Health Emanuel Medical Center’s West Tower in Portland. Kicking off this fall, phase one includes adding 14 new operating rooms within an existing shell space.

Working alongside ZGF Architects and Pacific Ironclad, other critical upgrades involve building out new pre- and post-surgery recovery areas, a state-of-the-art Sterile Processing Department (SPD), dedicated Adult and Pediatric PACUs (Post-Anesthesia Care Units), and more.

Through early planning and advanced virtual design technology, we’re coordinating with patient care teams to minimize disruptions and navigate existing conditions.

It’s an honor to support Legacy’s commitment to delivering exceptional patient care for the community.

In this new video, we invite you to go behind the scenes of the Oregon Burn Center project at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland, the only specialized burn facility between Seattle and Sacramento.

This 33,000-square-foot build-out will deliver 16 patient rooms tailored to the complex healing needs of burn survivors. Hear how close collaboration with caregivers and project partners including NBBJ and Mazzetti are helping bring this critical space to life.

This month, we’re wrapping up a key phase of Fred Hutch Cancer Center’s Building G renovation.

Designed by NBBJ, this 9,600-square-foot phase includes the installation of SPECT and PET-CT imaging systems, an important step in consolidating the nuclear medicine department and enhancing both operational efficiency and the patient experience.

The scope also includes building out nine PET uptake rooms, restrooms, support spaces, and staff workstations.

One of the biggest technical challenges involved integrating a complex MEP system into tight overhead spaces. This effort required close collaboration between Affiliated Engineers, the MEP designer, and UMC, which led BIM coordination.

Crews worked nights and weekends to minimize disruptions to patient care.

Lewis subsidiary Crutcher Structures is partnering with Clark Construction Group to deliver a major concrete package for the new 467,000-square-foot, 350-bed Western State Hospital New Forensic Hospital and a 53,000-square-foot mass timber administration building.

This project marks a significant step forward in transforming behavioral healthcare for forensic patients in Washington state, and we’re proud to be a part of it!

Our scope begins this month and will continue through summer 2026. This highly technical, phased work will be completed in sectors, with our team moving west to east along the new hospital’s footprint. Crews will be starting with below-grade slabs in the basement before progressing above grade and then moving to the next sector.

The team will place about 40,000 cubic yards of concrete, including foundations, concrete decks, shear walls, and more. In addition to the concrete work, Lewis will be overseeing operations for the project’s three tower cranes, with the first set to be assembled this summer.

General contractor: Clark Construction Group
Architects: HOK and architecture+
Structural and civil engineering: KPFF Consulting Engineers
MEP: Affiliated Engineers, Inc.

*Photo credit: HOK

New building performance standards impacting healthcare are coming to Washington and Oregon to reduce energy use and emissions from the building sector. How prepared is your organization?

The state of Washington has taken a leading role in enforcing new energy-efficiency standards that could influence how other states implement strategies for decarbonization.

In 2019, Washington passed the Clean Buildings Act (CBA). The resulting Clean Building Performance Standards (CBPS) set by the Department of Commerce took effect in July 2021 with the goal of improving the operational efficiency of our existing commercial building stock by meeting ASHRAE 100 standards.

By 2026, commercial buildings larger than 220,000 square feet must meet minimum energy performance (as measured by Energy Use Intensity, or EUI). The following year, buildings 90,000 square feet and above will fall under the same energy compliance requirements. And by 2028, the requirement will hit buildings larger than 50,000 square feet.

Owners who don’t meet the requirements by the deadline will face fines until they retrofit their building to meet the target EUI.

Meanwhile, Oregon is still in the final rulemaking phase of its building-performance standards, which should be finalized in late 2024. The state’s Department of Energy will then be mandating that building owners benchmark their energy use starting in 2028 to inform potential future standards and EUI compliance for buildings larger than 200,000 square feet.

At the moment, there’s no set date for when Oregon will enforce compliance and levy fines.

In 1989, Lewis senior superintendent Shane Weller’s grandfather Bill brought him to the Boeing Red Barn at Seattle’s Museum of Flight.

The structure, the country’s oldest surviving aircraft factory, held special meaning for the Weller family. It was there that Bill closed out his carpentry career in 1983, working on the barn’s restoration before retiring. And the project’s superintendent was none other than Shane’s father and Bill’s son.

As they walked the two-story structure and its exhibits that day, Bill would stop to show his 18-year-old grandson a detail here and a challenge overcome there.

“Well, what’d you think?” he asked Shane when it was time to go. “Want to be a carpenter?”

“Well, sure!” Shane remembers answering.

That same afternoon, they drove to the Carpenters’ Union Building together, where Shane signed up to become a member. In doing so, he set himself on a path to becoming a third-generation builder. (His uncle was also a carpenter.)

“I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life,” Shane recalls. “It felt like a good thing and it’s turned out to be a great career.”

Shane joined Lewis as a carpenter in 1999, first working on the Seaboard Building renovation project in downtown Seattle before being promoted to foreman. In 2002, he took over as superintendent at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. He’s been a fixture there ever since.

While most superintendents tend to move on after projects are complete, Shane has chosen to stay on and support Fred Hutch.

The variety of the work and the mission have kept him coming back.

“I really feel strongly about what I do here,” he said on a recent Thursday morning from a rooftop deck that overlooks Lake Union. “Helping cure cancer—it’s pretty awesome. It’s not just building a building and walking away. In this work, we’re helping people live.”

Lewis is midway through a 57,000-square-foot emergency department (ED) renovation project at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center (PSV) in Portland, Oregon.

The project involves expanding the patient room count from 52 beds to 72. It also includes a new and improved imaging department, universal exam rooms, the relocation of the behavioral health unit and the installation of a new air handler unit. Together, these ED renovations will allow the hospital to greatly reduce the triage time it takes for patients to receive vital medical care and increase the ED’s general capacity, limiting the possibility of patients being sent to other hospitals.

Work is taking place while the ED is actively providing care for the community.

A variety of equipment and procedures have helped reduce the impacts of construction. For example, the Lewis team has deployed a system of modular walls that closes construction off from the hospital, ensuring the highest levels of infection control and dust containment and that all active construction is taking place in negative air. Maintaining lower air pressure in the construction zone helps reduce the risk of cross-contamination to the surrounding spaces.

We also restrict our loudest work to occur between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. when patient counts are the lowest.