Officials of Washington County, Tenn. broke ground Wednesday on the $121 million construction of Franklin Woods Community Hospital, the first certified "green" building and the first "green" hospital in the state.
According to the Mountain States Health Alliance, the environmentally friendly 80-bed community hospital will be built according to U.S. Green Building Council guidelines and will open in 2010.
Dennis Vonderfecht, president and CEO of Mountain States, said the hospital marks not only a new era for Tennessee but for the healthcare system.
"This is very much the beginning of a sustained effort," he said. "We really want to be the green healthcare organization in the state. Starting here with Franklin Woods and with future hospitals that Mountain States will build, we will work diligently to make each as green as possible."
Mountain States plans to build three additional replacement hospitals over the next few years, he said.
Candace Jennings, vice president of Mountain States, said the new hospital will be unlike any other in the state. The hospital, designed by the Karlsberger architectural firm, will mix high-tech with a natural design.
"One of the things we're trying to do is take advantage of the site and not plow up everything," Paul Hinders of Karlsberger said. "We plan on maintaining the big stand of trees on the site while also designing the building to move with the landscape."
The hospital is designed to qualify as a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) facility, a nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings. LEED certification provides an independent, third-party verification that a building meets the council's high performance standards, is environmentally responsible and is a healthy place in which to work.
"There are numerous things going into this construction that will make this a LEED building," Hinders said. "Much of it comes from how we are treating water. The lobby will have a vegetative, green, flowing roof with natural rock outcroppings."
By having a roof that absorbs and uses rainwater rather than simply pouring it into the parking lots and then into the sewers, the facility will make great strides in meeting LEED certification, Hinders said.
"We also will do a lot to cut down the building's carbon footprint by controlling sunlight exposure, heat gain, using different types of glass and exterior shading," he added.
The designer said many of the materials, such as carpet, paint and flooring, will be chosen based on their environmental impact and how well they can be recycled.
The new hospital is to be built inside Johnson City's Med Tech Park at an estimated cost of $121 million and will replace the aging North Side and Johnson City Specialty hospitals.
The Mountain States Health Alliance includes 14 healthcare facilities in Tennessee and Virginia and six additional health service groups.