The UCHealth facility in Greeley, Colorado was designed with three primary goals in mind: form a connection between the facility and the community; bring state-of-the-art care to the underserved community of Greeley; and maintain a cohesive UCHealth brand message for alignment across multiple sites.

Form a Connection: The growing communities of Greeley and Weld County lacked local access to state-of-the-art medical care. People in these communities were required to travel a minimum of 33 miles to receive specialty services and treatments. UCHealth recognized this growing need and began to plan the new hospital and ambulatory care center in 2016. The challenge was to determine which specialty care services were in highest demand and most beneficial to this community.

State-of-the-Art Care: UCHealth utilized prototypical room types for consistency across their facilities. In the spirit of continuous improvement, the prototypes required study to ensure optimal utilization for the community at hand. The design team looked for improvement, while keeping the system as a whole in mind.

Maintain a Cohesive Brand: Careful thought was put into how to form a connection to the community with the built environment, while maintaining the iconic form of the UCHealth brand. The design team studied forms and an aesthetic story that could reinforce a sense of place to ensure that the UCHealth Greeley Hospital had brand recognition with local roots.

Project category: New construction and remodel/renovation

Chief administrator: Marilyn Schock, president, Greeley Hospital

Firm: BSA LifeStructures, www.bsalifestructures.com

Design team: BSA LifeStructures (architecture and interior design – hospital); Gallun Snow (interior design – health center); JE Dunn (general contractor); Affiliated Engineers Inc. (MEP engineering); Stewart Engineering (structural engineer); Martin & Martin (civil engineering)

Total building area (sq. ft.): 320,000

Completed: May 2019 (Health Center); July 2019 (Hospital)