Faulkner Hospital's expansion plans now include a floor that could be quickly turned into a pandemic ward

Faulkner Hospital has filed a new set of expansion plans that are largely similar to the ones it filed in 2019, but with one major change: One of the new in-patient floors would have a special ventilation system to better let the hospital isolate and treat patients during the current and future pandemics.

In a new filing with the BPDA today, Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital says it needs to add a five-story addition to the front of its current main building that would include new facilities for endoscopy and radiology procedures on the first two floors and three floors with a total of 78 new in-patient rooms - the first major addition to the hospital since 1976.

Also proposed: More parking, by adding three levels to one garage and completely replacing another with a far larger one.

The hospital says the fifth floor of the new wing, which would have 26 beds, would be built for easy transformation into an infectious-disease ward:

The fifth floor has been designed with an air ventilation system that will allow additional air changes and capacity for negative pressure to provide the flexibility to convert the floor into an infectious disease floor and allow the Hospital to better respond to future pandemics and therefore better serve the community.

It adds that the garage work would mean a total addition of 503 parking spaces. The hospital is proposing a second entrance on Allandale Street, for use only by employees. Reconfigured loading and unloading areas, the new parking spaces and changes to the traffic signals in front of the hospital on Centre Street will help ease the congestion both on the public streets and on the hospital campus, the hospital says.

The hospital adds it will build a dedicated bicycle lane along Centre, from Whitcomb to Allandale and will create a passageway from the 38 bus stops up to the main building that are accessible to people in wheelchairs. Also:

BWFH has begun a series of discussions with the MBTA about possible improvements that might be implemented to its shuttle operations at Forest Hills Station, and that outreach will continue. Envisioned are actions that would help make the BWFH shuttle bus at Forest Hills Station more visible and easier to board and alight from.

The all new garage would be topped with solar panels, which the hospital says could meet at least 50% of the new main building addition's energy needs.

The hospital says that both the hospital addition and the garage changes will take roughly two years to complete. It says it hopes to begin work on the garages this year.

The hospital says that the new addition will mean the hiring of roughly 390 employees.

Draft project impact report (74.6M PDF).
Other documents and calendar.