Phased Construction on Occupied New Mexico Sites

A clinic that stays open during construction is really two projects running through the same doorways. One is the building going up or being renovated. The other is the daily business of patients, students, guests or customers who have no interest in the first and every right to an uninterrupted second. Phased construction is the discipline of making those two projects coexist.

Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe is a useful example. The hospital completed a $44 million project in 2018 that added all-private patient rooms, and it did so as a working 206-bed hospital that kept admitting patients throughout. Work like that is only possible when the contractor plans every wall, every hallway closure and every utility shutdown with the occupants.

We build additions, renovations and infill on occupied sites for health care, education, hospitality and retail owners across New Mexico. The most important thing we bring is not a particular technique but a habit of listening first: to the facility manager, the nursing supervisor, the principal, the store manager, and the neighbors who share a driveway with the site.

Separating the work from the people

Dust, noise, vibration and construction traffic are the main intrusions, and each one has a specific control. Dust barriers go up from floor to deck, with negative air machines pulling air out of the work zone and filtered exhaust leaving the building. Sticky mats and clean routes keep debris from walking out on shoes. Noise is scheduled, with the loudest tasks done after hours or on weekends when the occupant agrees.

In healthcare settings, an infection control risk assessment drives the requirements. The level of barrier, ventilation and cleaning depends on the activity and the patient population nearby, and the facility's infection prevention staff approve the plan and often inspect it. We train every worker on the rules and enforce them. Fire safety is a related concern: exits, extinguishers and alarms must stay functional, and any shutdown is coordinated with the fire marshal and the facility.

Utilities, access and the things nobody wants interrupted

Most disruption in an occupied building comes from utility shutdowns. Power, water, medical gas, fire alarm, data and HVAC all have to be tied in at some point, and each tie-in is planned in advance with the owner: when it will happen, how long it will last, what the backup is and who will be on site. We write a short tie-in procedure for each one, and we do the work at the hours the owner prefers.

Access is the other half. Construction entrances are kept separate from public entrances, haul routes avoid patient and student paths, and deliveries are scheduled to avoid peak hours. Parking is often a flashpoint, so we plan where workers will park and where the displaced parking will go. In campus settings like San Juan College in Farmington, which reports 31 structures across five campuses, the logistics of keeping streets, walks and doors open is a project in itself.

Communication as a construction task

The facility's staff are the real clients of this kind of work, and we treat communication as part of the schedule. Before any phase begins we meet with department heads to explain what will happen, what they will hear and see, and who to call. During construction we hold short weekly check-ins, post notices ahead of any disruption and respond to complaints the same day.

On the project side, we divide the work into phases that give the owner usable space back at each step. A renovation might proceed wing by wing so one area is finished and occupied before the next is opened. Every phase has an entry condition, an exit condition and a list of items that must be complete before the area is turned over. This avoids the common trap of finishing everything at once and none of it on time.

Sequencing around the calendar of the occupant

The occupant's calendar determines the best windows. Schools prefer summer, hotels avoid peak seasons, and retailers avoid the holidays. Western New Mexico University in Silver City, an 80-acre campus with over 40 buildings and over 3,500 students in fall 2024, needs work to fit between terms. Hospitals have no off-season at all, so the sequence is built around bed counts and clinical schedules.

We build a phasing plan that shows each step in plain language, and we revisit it as conditions change. Float is protected for the most sensitive events, and we have a fallback for each major shutdown. Owners who see the plan early can often adjust their operations to give us a better window, which shortens the overall schedule.

Who this work serves

Healthcare systems are the most demanding clients for this work, with infection control, life safety and the lowest tolerance for downtime, and what we learn there carries over to others. Education institutions focus on safety around students and a hard deadline for the first day of class. Hospitality groups have guests who notice every sound, and retail owners track the sales lost during every day of disruption.

The tools are the same for each: careful barriers, honest scheduling, tie-in planning and open communication. What changes is the tolerance, which is why the first meeting is always a conversation about what the owner can and cannot live with.

Building types that stay open

Our work on hospitals and health facilities gives us the strictest experience, and it informs smaller jobs such as clinics and medical offices. Schools need work completed before the bell rings, and our education facility construction team builds summer-window schedules with that in mind. Hotel renovations are phased floor by floor so rooms can be returned to inventory as they are finished.

Plan the phases with the people who live there

Walk us through how your building operates and we will propose a phasing plan, a communication routine and the controls that protect your occupants.

Questions Owners Ask

Will construction noise and dust affect our daily operations?

We use barriers, negative air, scheduling and quiet methods to keep the effect low, but some disruption is unavoidable. We discuss the noisiest tasks with you in advance and schedule them for times that suit you. We also give you a direct contact so problems can be fixed the same day.

How do you handle utility shutdowns?

Each shutdown is planned in writing with a date, duration, backup plan and responsible people, and agreed with the owner in advance. We stage materials and pre-fabricate where possible to shorten the outage, and we test the system before restoring service.

Can we phase the work so we keep part of the building usable?

Yes, and it is the usual approach. We divide the building into zones, finish one before opening the next and provide temporary egress, partitions and signage. The tradeoff is a somewhat longer overall schedule and higher cost than an empty-building project.

What is an ICRA and who writes it?

An infection control risk assessment is a document that identifies the risks of a construction activity to patients and sets the barriers and procedures that control them. The facility's infection prevention team leads it, and we implement and maintain the controls on the site.

What does phased work cost compared with an empty building?

It usually costs more because of the extra barriers, night work, protection and slower production. The premium depends on how sensitive the occupant is. We price it clearly so the owner can weigh it against the cost of vacating the building.

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