A YEAR OF PROGRESS AT ST. ANTHONY’S HOSPITAL

​An entire year has passed since we last shared an update on the St. Anthony’s Hospital expansion project, and a lot has been accomplished in that time! APG is proud to be working with Robins & Morton on this 90-bed expansion of a major hospital in St. Petersburg. As one of the largest hospitals to serve the constantly growing population of Pinellas County, St. Anthony’s plays a critical role in the community. BayCare is making major investments in the facility to improve the patient experience by adding a tower with all private patient rooms, relocating the cafeteria and kitchen to the first floor for easier access, creating new educational classrooms, expanding inpatient dialysis, and relocating several existing hospital services. A major component of our work involves building a new Central Energy Plant. This is a particularly challenging task because of the extensive shut downs and changeovers required to power an existing facility from a new source, and we’re excited to announce that the CEP is now complete and has been handed over to hospital staff for operation. ​

​Construction of the CEP involved creating an all-new medium voltage electrical system, which was overseen by Project Superintendent Ricky Thomas. Ricky and his team installed over 16,000’ of highly sensitive medium voltage cabling between electrical switchgear, transformers, and a massive new substation that weighs more than 50,000 pounds. At 35’ long, the substation was so large that it couldn’t be installed in one piece and had to be separated into smaller sections that could be lifted up to the second floor, then rolled across a 100’ span of existing roof. Careful planning and weeks of preparation enabled us to manage this difficult installation without problems or any damage to the existing hospital. Emergency power is provided by three 15kV 2.5mW bi-fuel generators that connect to 15kV switchgear lineups with two separate utility feeds for extra redundancy. Now that the new CEP is up and running, utility changeovers from existing equipment are underway and several major hospital loads have already been transferred. We’ll soon begin the challenging process of re-feeding the remaining existing gear in the hospital from the new switchgear in the CEP.

Many smaller renovations within the hospital have already been completed, including a new kitchen, servery, executive administration offices, respiratory therapy space, and loading docks. Construction of the patient tower is progressing quickly, and we now have at least 80% of it completely roughed-in. With power going live and many areas already occupied by hospital staff, we’re on track to meet our scheduled completion date in April of 2022.
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Project Superintendent Ricky Thomas and his foremen, Cody Kiesewetter, Seth Keck, and Quentin Clark, have done an outstanding job in coordinating this work with our partners, Robins & Morton and BayCare. We are also proud of the hard work of Senior Project Manager Anthony Ciquera, Life Safety Project Manager James Sutton, and the entire support team on site. We’ll keep you updated as this marquee project progresses. Thank you to all involved for your continued hard work and dedication to “Doing It Right”!