Four hospitals share Harlingen: a large regional medical center with 586 beds, a 112-bed community hospital, a 41-bed specialty hospital and a 94-bed behavioral health facility. Around them sit clinics, imaging centers, dialysis units and offices for doctors who need to be minutes from a patient room. That cluster is the center of our healthcare work, and most of it happens inside buildings that are already occupied and already busy.
Healthcare construction is different from ordinary commercial work in one basic way: the building keeps serving patients while we work. Air handling, pressure relationships, water systems, emergency power and infection control all have to stay in service, and nothing we do may interrupt them without a planned, approved shutdown. We build for hospital facilities teams, physician groups and owners who understand that the construction plan is as important as the drawings.
Most healthcare work in this market is renovation, expansion or a new outpatient building. We build exam rooms and procedure suites, imaging rooms with shielding, pharmacies, labs and sterile processing areas, and we upgrade the systems behind them: medical gas, nurse call, emergency power, chilled water and make-up air. New ground-up clinics and ambulatory care buildings are built on the same standards, with more freedom on the site. Our overview of hospital and healthcare buildings goes into the building types in more detail.
A good example of what hospital work looks like is on the public record. The state lists a plumbing renovation of a hospital tower on Pease Street, about 10,000 square feet at $2.5 million, replacing water and waste piping, with a schedule that runs for three years. It shows how long and careful this kind of work is when floors must stay open.
Before demolition starts in an occupied hospital, we complete an infection control risk assessment with the facility, then build barriers, negative air machines, sticky mats and dedicated routes to match the risk level. Dust is the enemy. We protect air intakes, seal ceiling penetrations and monitor pressure daily, and we clean to the hospital's standard before any wall is opened.
Life safety is just as strict. Corridors, exits, fire alarm and sprinkler coverage have to remain functional or be covered by an approved interim plan, and any impairment is reported to the facility. We keep a log of every shutdown and every restoration, and no one on the construction trade team can shut off a system without a signed permit from the owner's engineer.
The schedule for a hospital job is built around the owner's operations, not ours. Work on an operating suite, an emergency department or an intensive care unit is divided into small zones, each with a short window, and noisy or disruptive work is moved to nights and weekends. We plan each shutdown in detail and order the parts ahead of time so the window is used for installation, not waiting.
Another state project at the same tower rebuilds the make-up air and exhaust air handling units and enlarges a vestibule, a good example of equipment work that requires a plan for temporary air. Our phased construction experience on occupied sites is the starting point for how we write these schedules.
Healthcare is not one building type. A behavioral health building needs ligature-resistant fixtures, careful sightlines and safe hardware, while an academic clinical building needs lab space and flexible rooms. The Harlingen Regional Academic Health Center, now part of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, supports the medical school's library and a veterans clinic, and it shows how clinical, teaching and research uses can share a campus.
We pay attention to flexibility. Medical equipment changes quickly, and a room built for today's imaging machine may need to host a different one in ten years. We design power, structure and mechanical systems with spare capacity where it makes financial sense, and we flag where the owner can save money by not building it.
Storms are part of the design brief. Harlingen sits in the Inland II windstorm zone, with a 110 mph three-second gust design speed, and in July 2020 Hurricane Hanna brought roughly 10 to 12 inches of rain to Harlingen-area gauges, a 63 mph gust and flooded streets. A hospital has to keep operating through that kind of event, so we pay attention to roof attachment, rooftop equipment curbs, generator fuel and the elevation of electrical gear when we work on a building's systems.
Healthcare projects are reviewed by the City of Harlingen under its adopted 2024 codes, by the fire marshal, and, depending on the facility type, by state agencies that license hospitals and clinics. Accessibility review applies to projects at or above $50,000. We build review time into the schedule and assemble submittals so the owner's licensing consultant can use them directly.
Commissioning is part of the job. We test and document the pressure relationships, air changes, emergency power transfer and medical gas before turnover, because a hospital cannot open a space until those tests pass. Our commissioning and closeout services set out how we organize the documents.
Send us the department, the square footage and your preferred shutdown windows, and we will outline the phasing, the barriers and the cost drivers. Health system owners can read more on our healthcare systems page, and the district itself is covered on our Harlingen medical area page.
We build barriers and negative air to match the infection control risk assessment, route workers and material away from patient areas, and plan each shutdown with the facility team. Daily checks of pressure and barrier condition are logged, and any problem is reported at once. Noisy work moves to times that the owner approves.
It usually costs more per square foot, because of mechanical, electrical, medical gas and infection control requirements. The difference depends on the space. A simple clinic may cost only a little more than an office, while a procedure suite costs much more. We give a ranged number early and then firm it up with drawings.
Yes, and the two often go together. We also build medical office buildings for physician groups who need a different kind of project, with leasing and tenant improvements in mind.
Longer than comparable commercial work. A large renovation in an occupied tower can take years, in phases, as public project records show. A new outpatient building may take a year or less, once the permit is in hand, and we tell you where the long-lead items are early on.