Salt Lake City’s Sugar House Health Center is a new 170,000-sf medical clinic, 150,000-sf office building, and 1,200-stall parking garage. VBFA engineers provided the mechanical, plumbing and fire protection designs for the project. VBFA was involved from the beginning of this project, helping the design team with cost estimating, and were instrumental in providing information necessary for decision-making from the start.

Schedule for the project was of the utmost importance, and initial designs needed to be completed in just two months. VBFA’s deep team of educated and experienced engineers proved a great strength throughout this process.

The Sugar House Health Center is a one-stop shop for patients and includes pharmacy, urgent care, radiology, radiation oncology, women’s health, infusion, medical oncology, family practice, pediatrics, internal medicine, hematology, cardiology, rheumatology, dermatology, lab, endoscopy, and rehab services with complex and varying HVAC requirements. VBFA’s mechanical systems utilize a combination of evaporative cooling, natural ventilation, and traditional chillers. Together, these systems provide high-performance buildings that are sustainable and highly energy efficient.

As with any design, the need to conform to project budgets posed a major challenge to designing innovative, energy-saving systems without compromising function and comfort for the people who occupy the facilities, and VBFA pulled off this challenge to provide the Sugar House neighborhood and University of Utah Health a landmark project.