Steel goes up beside an occupied hospital the way it did on the Wyoming Medical Center West Tower: four stories, 46 patient rooms, about 750 tons of structural steel, a separate 5,000 square foot MRI building and sky bridges tied into the working hospital. That tower topped out in June 2013, built by a joint venture with GSG Architecture and Davis Partnership Architects. It shows what healthcare construction on this campus asks of a contractor: build tall and tight while patients keep coming through the front door.
We build healthcare space for hospitals, clinics and medical office owners around the campus, about 1.5 miles south of downtown Casper. Wyoming Medical Center is a 249-bed Level II trauma center, and Banner Health's affiliation with the hospital became official on October 1, 2020, in a roughly $200 million deal. Ownership and capital decisions at that scale affect how projects are procured, so we work comfortably with system-level owners and their facilities teams.
Clinical work follows different rules from ordinary commercial work: infection control, power continuity, imaging shielding and strict commissioning. We plan for them from the first drawing.
Around a hospital campus, the work we are asked to do includes medical office buildings, outpatient clinics, imaging suites, specialty practices, parking and sitework, and renovations inside or beside the existing hospital. Some projects are new buildings on adjacent lots. Others are tenant improvements for doctors who want to be near the hospital.
Each of these has clinical requirements beyond a standard office: exam rooms with correct plumbing and medical gas, imaging rooms with radiation or magnetic shielding, sterile processing, nurse stations with data and nurse call systems and corridors wide enough for beds and equipment. We coordinate with the owner's clinical staff, the architect and the equipment vendors so rough-in matches the machines that will be installed.
Our approach for healthcare is to plan the interface with the live hospital before anything else. That means mapping the routes patients, staff and supplies use, locating emergency and ambulance access, finding shared utilities and deciding where construction must stay sealed from clinical space. We write a construction logistics plan and review it with hospital facilities and infection prevention staff before work begins.
The West Tower's sky bridges to the occupied hospital are a reminder that connections are the riskiest parts of these projects. A new corridor, a bridge or a tie-in to existing mechanical or electrical systems is planned as its own scope, with a date, a shutdown request, a rollback plan and a witness list. Our phased construction on occupied sites method treats each of these as a milestone with a named owner.
Healthcare projects in Casper sit inside several overlapping rule sets. The City of Casper lists the 2024 International Codes with amendments in Title 15 of its municipal code, and commercial permits often require a life-safety plan, engineered building and site drawings and Planning/Zoning approval. Hospitals and clinics also answer to state licensing and to the owner's own standards, which can be stricter than code.
The state fire marshal page lists the 2024 International Fire Code and Building Code as applying, and names the 2026 National Electrical Code for electrical work, though other Wyoming sources still cite the 2023 edition, so the electrical edition should be confirmed with the Department of Fire Prevention and Electrical Safety. We ask these questions early, because an edition mismatch discovered late can mean rework in the walls. The city's climatic criteria add a three foot frost line and severe weathering to the design basis.
The safety plan for a healthcare job is two plans in one. The first is the ordinary construction plan: fall protection, excavation, lifting, hot work and traffic control. The second is infection control and patient safety. We use dust barriers, negative air where needed, walk-off mats, sealed pathways for debris and strict controls on water systems and ceilings that could release contaminants.
We train crews on those rules before they work on campus and keep logs that hospital staff can check. Noise and vibration are managed too: demolition, saw cutting and compaction near sensitive spaces are scheduled with clinical staff, and some are done on nights and weekends. If a procedure room or a patient floor is affected, we hold the activity until it is clear.
Hospital schedules have two clocks. One is the construction schedule. The other is the owner's operating calendar, including shutdown windows for power and medical gas, licensing inspections and the date new space has to open to patients. We build the plan around the second clock.
Equipment is often the longest lead item. Switchgear, generators, imaging equipment and air handling units can take months, so we help owners release equipment orders early through long-lead procurement. Winter in Casper limits exterior work, so we aim to enclose new buildings before cold weather and finish interiors under heat. Commissioning and closeout are scheduled in, not added at the end, because a space that cannot be licensed cannot be used. See our commissioning and closeout process.
On and around the campus we most often build hospital additions and renovations, medical office buildings, outpatient imaging and surgery space, parking and support buildings. Each has a different cost profile: hospital space is the most complex, medical office the most flexible and parking the simplest.
Healthcare owners who are also public or nonprofit entities have their own procurement paths. Our experience with healthcare systems covers capital approvals, owner-furnished equipment and phased handovers. If you are comparing campus sites with other parts of the city, the downtown core offers infill options a short distance north.
Tell us what the space has to do and when patients need it. We will map the interface with the hospital, the equipment lead times and the code path, and give you a plan you can take to your board.
By planning the interface first. We map patient, staff and supply routes, seal construction areas with barriers and negative air where needed and schedule noisy or disruptive work with clinical staff. Connections to live systems are planned as separate scopes with shutdown dates and rollback plans.
It topped out in June 2013 at four stories with 46 patient rooms and about 750 tons of structural steel, plus a separate 5,000 square foot MRI building and sky bridges to the occupied hospital. It shows that tall steel work, imaging and live-hospital connections can all be done on the same campus, with careful sequencing.
The city lists the 2024 International Codes with amendments in Title 15. The state fire marshal page names the 2026 National Electrical Code for electrical work, while other Wyoming sources still cite the 2023 edition. We confirm the electrical edition with the Department of Fire Prevention and Electrical Safety.
They often control it. Imaging systems, generators, switchgear and air handlers can take months to arrive. We help owners order early and design rough-in around the confirmed equipment.
Yes. Banner Health's affiliation with Wyoming Medical Center became official on October 1, 2020. System owners often have standards for procurement, safety and documentation, and we follow them.