Construction crews have completed excavating the space where Suburban Hospital will soon begin building a new 1,125-space parking garage along Old Georgetown Road in Bethesda.
On Tuesday, hospital officials celebrated the latest milestone under the massive crane that will help begin building the concrete garage.
Jacky Schultz, interim president of the Bethesda hospital, described the day as an “amazing moment” for the long-term project. She said the hospital has been waiting for years for adequate parking. The new garage will create 400 additional spaces and allow the hospital to grow into the new four-story, 300,000-square-foot clinical center it plans to build after the garage is completed. The construction will nearly double the size of the hospital.
The projects are estimated to cost $270 million. The new clinical center will be built on the site of what’s currently a temporary staff parking lot behind the garage.
The excavated hole where the parking garage is being constructed at Suburban Hospital. Credit: Andrew Metcalf
John McMahon, chairman of Miller & Long Concrete Construction, which is building the garage, said he expects the exterior of the garage to be completed by the end of 2016, with work on the interior occurring in early 2017 before it opens. He said the construction process may cause limited noise generated by diesel trucks delivering materials.
“It shouldn’t be more noise than the traffic on Old Georgetown Road,” McMahon said. He added that building the project on the property is challenging because the hospital’s operations can’t be negatively impacted during construction.
“It’s not like going into a cow pasture and building something,” McMahon said. “We’re constantly moving things around and keeping the hospital open is key.”
The location of the garage and the future clinical center is the former site of four residential homes and Lincoln Street, which were acquired by the hospital to make way for the construction project. The project is the hospital’s first since it added an addition in 1979, according to a website about the project. The clinical center is expected to be finished in 2019.
A rendering of what the finished addition and parking garage will look like. Credit: Suburbanfuture.org
