by Brad Forrest
In a powerful demonstration of collaboration, innovation, and technical excellence, Walsh Brothers, Inc. announced that the Boston Medical Center’s (BMC) Yawkey Building Inpatient Expansion project has received the prestigious national 2025 Baldwin Group Build America Award from the Associated General Contractors of America. This nationally recognized honor celebrates the successful delivery of a complex, high-stakes healthcare project that pushed the boundaries of construction while remaining deeply attuned to patient care and operational continuity.
BMC is a private, nonprofit, 574-bed academic medical center – the largest safety-net hospital and the busiest trauma center in New England. In recent years increased utilization, high occupancy rates, and concomitant effects (e.g., on the Emergency department) meant BMC needed more inpatient beds.
Exterior scaffold, hoist, and tower crane over Mass Ave. with adjacent decontamination station
The Yawkey Building, a 7-story building constructed for outpatient care in 1972, spans a critical 4-lane roadway (Massachusetts Ave.) in Boston’s South End neighborhood. Motor vehicles, cyclists, and people circulate under the building. In a peak 2-hour morning period, roughly 3,500 vehicles travel under Yawkey. The project’s complex expansion and renovation program involved a vertical addition to the 6th floor and renovations of the 5th and 6th floors. The work took place on a zero-lot line above occupied maternity, neo-natal intensive care, and pediatric inpatient units. Walsh Brothers’ creative solution to use a tower crane and to wrap the structure in scaffolding helped eliminate constraints on road closures, reduced the overall duration by about 12 months, and reduced the burden on the hospital’s internal elevators. Over fifty 10,000 lb. (17’ x 8’) precast concrete facade panels and 15,000sf of roofing had to be removed (over occupied areas). Detailed planning and intensive communications with the clinical teams all contributed to an exemplary safety record. Prefabricated curtainwall and headwall systems helped move up critical weathertight dates, enabling earlier interior finishes.
BMC used an Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) contract structure involving early on-boarding of builders and a shared risk and reward structure between the hospital, designers, and builders. All participants – corporate leadership, managers, and trade workers – had to be open to new ways of thinking, behaving, planning, designing, and building. In addition to Walsh Brothers and owner Boston Medical Center, the IPD team included Tsoi Kobus Design/DLR Group, CMTA, Odeh/WSP, EMCOR Services, McDonald Electric, and Sweeney Drywall. Consultants included Redgate, OPM; Code Red, life safety; and RDH, envelope.
The IPD Project Partnership team used a multi-party IPD agreement and formed a “one company” mindset to put the hospital’s goals above all else and incentivized each party to think creatively and collaboratively to mitigate risks of all kinds (e.g., safety, scope creep, schedule, and budget). Walsh’s involvement at inception to provide real-time cost and schedule feedback on design decisions is an excellent example of how IPD best practices break down traditional silos between design and construction phases.
The multi-phased Yawkey Building Inpatient Expansion was completed on time and under budget, exemplifying what’s achievable through innovation, trust, and teamwork. As BMC and the partners continue their IPD journey, this award-winning project sets a new standard for collaboration in complex healthcare construction.
Brad Forrest
Brad Forrest is vice president and chief operating officer at Walsh Brothers, Inc.
