Orthopedic Center of Excellence

Tonn and Blank Construction served as the design-builder to lead the joint venture project between Franciscan Health and Forte Sports Medicine for the Orthopedic Center of Excellence. Poised to deliver targeted surgical care as well as a proliferation of services designed to decrease pain and enhance functional mobility for both the community and high-performance athletes, this new facility features an orthopedic specialty hospital and a medical office building for inpatient and outpatient surgery, specialized rehabilitation and more.

The facility includes inpatient and outpatient surgical suites for orthopedic procedures, 23 inpatient beds, a pre-surgery center, an orthopedic urgent care clinic, a state-of-the-art center for physical and occupational therapy, an advanced imaging center and a multi-story parking garage and sky bridge. It also has a sports performance and athletic training center for medically trained personnel to work directly with athletes of all levels on specific motions used in their activities as they rehab.

Patient care was the main topic of discussion throughout design sessions. This ensured both the patients and staff could move efficiently and comfortably throughout every space in the facility. During the preconstruction phase, Tonn and Blank’s Virtual Design and Construction team was creating an immersive preview of the monumental project using building information modeling (BIM). This allowed the project team to make decisions ahead of schedule to improve quality, safety, schedule, and budget.

Collaboration among the engineering, architectural, and construction teams were imperative for a complex project of this stature. The project team held a 3-day Lean Design visioning session to determine program flow and adjacencies, determine the Owner preferences, and rapidly develop alternatives with real-time feedback.

Serving as an extension of the Owner’s staff, Tonn and Blank’s Program Management team created a strategic roadmap from concept to full design development, to end-user occupancy. The goal was to help achieve Owner expectations and budget responsibly in a manner that brought the highest value to both Owners, as well as successfully executing the massive logistics effort of advanced imaging equipment, rehabilitation equipment, and more.

As always, Midwest weather negatively influenced various factors encountered throughout the project, but Tonn and Blank’s self-performing team helped overcome this by winterizing some of the concrete pours, mainly the 664-space parking garage, and providing heat to maintain the pour schedule. A unique variable was the shutdown for COVID-19. The schedule continued all the while some of the crew members went missing for days at a time due to illnesses and precautionary measures which presented challenges beyond the usual. Nonetheless, the project team was still able to deliver the Orthopedic Center of Excellence project on time.

“I have had the pleasure of working with Tonn and Blank Construction for the past two years building a major specialty hospital – my experience has been nothing short of outstanding.  The entire Tonn and Blank team has consistently exceeded my expectations at every level.  We are charting a difficult path that is unprecedented with the current global pandemic, but still we are on target thanks in large part to the exceptional management of the Tonn and Blank team.  The key factors have been their ability to be creative problem solvers, extraordinary in-house skilled labor staff that can self-perform work efficiently and cost effectively when it was needed most to keep the project moving forward.  I simply could not be more satisfied with Tonn and Blank, and I would highly recommend them without reservation to anyone looking to do a project large or small.” 

– Marty Rosenberg, CEO – Forte Sports Medicine