2020-'21: HOLT Architects - AIA Southern New York

Bailey Road Clinical Laboratory at University of Rochester Medicine Central Laboratory

For almost a century, the Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine has been an integral part of the University of Rochester’s health network, UR Medicine, located in Upstate New York. To date, it is the department with the second-largest number of employees (over 1,000) who perform inpatient and outpatient testing for patients of the University’s health system, UR Medicine, affiliate hospitals, more than 40 outpatient service centers, and a number of nursing homes.

The building is an adaptive reuse of a facility that was originally built in 1993 and purchased by the project Owner in 2004. It housed staff from various departments before it was gutted, expanded, and repurposed as a clinical laboratory. As the department’s clinical footprint has grown over the years, so has its need for more space. Testing volumes surpassed 8 million in 2018 and have shown no signs of decreasing.

Location: 211 Bailey Road, West Henrietta, NY 14586

Completed: June 24, 2019

Design Award Year: 2020-’21

Award Category: Institutional

Award Level: Citation

AIA SNY COTE Medal: Bronze

Submitting Architect and Project Link:

Quay Thompson, AIA

www.holt.com

Over the last decade, there has been a growing need for testing to move offsite due to limited space in the Emergency Department, located adjacent to labs on the ground floor. Knowing this, the Medical Center administration executed its long-term plan to consolidate and relocate non-acute testing offsite and move acute testing to different space within the hospital. This would allow the ED to expand, while also giving UR Medicine Labs the opportunity to upgrade its facilities at a modernized central laboratory.

Many of the lab areas scattered across the hospital were outdated and too small to accommodate larger, newer testing automation. This, combined with the needs for centralization and decompressed hospital space led to the construction of the UR Medicine Central Laboratory. The newly expanded and renovated facility opened for business on June 24, 2019. We moved nearly 500 staff and 700 pieces of equipment in Phase I, which was the largest and most logistical move. While there is still critical inpatient testing at Strong Memorial Hospital, the majority of lab administration, support staff and operations, including all outpatient testing, were successfully relocated to Bailey Road by fall 2019.