Project Overview

Founded more than a century ago in West Michigan, Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services is a nonprofit organization that offers a suite of services to the community, including psychiatric urgent care, inpatient and partial hospitalization, addiction treatment, senior care, and more. Pine Rest serves more than 8000 children and teens annually. With the construction of the new Pediatric Center for Behavioral Health, the organization can better serve up to 800 children per year with inpatient services and 10,000 children per year with outpatient and crisis care. For the building, officials with Pine Rest sought a structural system that could support the requirements of institutional use while maintaining a quality finish on both the interior and exterior. They were also determined to leverage a system that would require minimal maintenance. Working with Fabcon, architect BWBR, engineer Ericksen Roed and Associates, and general contractor EV Construction, Pine Rest found its answer in precast concrete.

Changing Lives with Precast Concrete

The project was located close to Pine Rest’s original hospital, which was constructed in 1910 by a group of pastors seeking to create a facility for the treatment of the mentally ill focused on medical and spiritual support. In designing the Pediatric Center for Behavioral Health, the project team sought to create a new, modern space that would honor the architecture of the original campus buildings, which were built with stone and brick. This required a panel containing integral brick with areas of acid-washed precast concrete and formliner finish. Melanie Baumhover, principal at BWBR, noted that the building’s design was intended to mimic a treehouse.

“The project’s design centers around the concept of a treehouse, an idea that originated in community and patient meetings to evoke the soothing and therapeutic aspects of nature while also expressing a playfulness that would appeal to children,” she says. “We chose precast concrete primarily for the time it would save in the construction process and the ability to have several aesthetic finish options with one primary wall type. The building has a combination of thin brick embedded into the panels, a ‘tree bark’ formliner with integral color, and smooth panels with a painted pattern, all of which help express the treehouse design concept.”

Other structural systems considered included masonry, which would have had significant schedule impacts due to the wall construction. In addition, the insulation and brick façade would need to be installed after the roof was completed, extending the schedule even further. With precast concrete, a multicomponent wall system was combined into a single-source, insulated composite system that was completed upon panel installation, resulting in ample time saved.

“Using precast on this project allowed the schedule to improve by a significant amount, specifically due to the speed at which the building envelope can be completed to start interior work,” says Chad VanKampen, manager of preconstruction at Fabcon. “Once a precast wall is tipped up, the exterior finish is done, the air/vapor barrier is in place, and the roof deck is ready to go down.”

With an encapsulated insulation layer and the ability to provide multiple finishes on the exterior, including embedded thin brick, precast concrete was the perfect solution for the Pediatric Center for Behavioral Health. The installation of the project’s 365 precast concrete panels, completed in just a few months, eliminated a multistage installation process typical of conventional systems. It also removed site risks associated with scaffolding, additional on-site labor, logistical coordination, and congestion. As Baumhover explains, the structure is built for longevity, with an attractive appeal that establishes feelings of care and compassion for those who will benefit from its services.

“Pine Rest is building for the long-term and prioritizes longevity and minimal ongoing maintenance,” she says. “This system gave us that, along with meeting all relative thermal requirements—plus, we saw considerable time and budget savings thanks to the single-story structural precast elements, which were used as exterior bearing walls. This allowed us to avoid the expense of columns, beams, piers, and footings.”

Mason Nichols is a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based writer and editor who has covered the precast concrete industry since 2013.

Owner: Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services, Grand Rapids, Mich.

PCI-Certified Precast Concrete Producer: Fabcon, Grandville, Mich.

Architect: BWBR, Saint Paul, Minn.

Engineer of Record and Precast Concrete Specialty Engineer: Ericksen Roed and Associates, Saint Paul, Minn.

General Contractor: EV Construction, Holland, Mich.

PCI-Certified Erector: Fabcon Precast LLC, Eden Prairie, Minn.

PCI-Associate Supplier: Architectural Polymers, Inc., Palmerton, Penn.

Project Cost: $68 million ($3.7 million for the precast concrete)

Project Size: 136,000 ft²

Key Project Attributes

• Pine Rest Pediatric Center for Behavioral Health is a new 136,000-ft² facility located near Grand Rapids, Mich., that will serve up to 800 children per year with inpatient services and 10,000 children per year with outpatient and crisis care.
• The building, located close to the original hospital that opened in 1910, contains a blend of traditional and modern architectural features.
• The Pediatric Center for Behavioral Health’s design is intended to mimic a treehouse, evoking the soothing and therapeutic aspects of nature.

Project/Precast Scope

• More than 350 precast concrete panels were designed and manufactured for the project.
• Leveraging a single-source, precast concrete structural system delivered significant time-savings while also allowing the architect to meet its design goals.
• The building is constructed for longevity, with precast concrete ensuring little to no maintenance and providing a facility suited to serve the community for the foreseeable future.