South Lake Union clinic expansion
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center is expanding its South Lake Union Clinic to better serve patients and their families while enhancing the way cancer is treated. More information will be provided here as the project progresses.
Exterior rendering
New Parking and Pedestrian Entrance Map
Frequently asked questions
It is a new, six story 150,000 square foot extension of the South Lake Union Clinic that allows Fred Hutch to expand its existing outpatient clinic services to continue to provide life-saving treatment for our patients with exciting innovations in how that care is delivered. It also allows us to continue expanding services that we offer to the community.
The expansion will allow access to clinics, including treatment, through the design of three new floors to support our “care neighborhood” clinic footprint. Each care neighborhood consists of about 10 “flex rooms” that are used for most patient care, including drawing labs, having clinic visits, education visits and treatments. This design will help reduce the overall time a patient may spend in the building, including waiting. The new building can accommodate up to nine of these care neighborhoods when fully built out.
Additionally, we will be expanding and relocating our existing procedure suite to the new building and some medical imaging activities also will relocate there.
Our new multi-purpose 120 square foot “flex rooms” provide space that is flexible to meet the needs of patients by providing draws, visits, exams and infusions all in a single place. We will have core care teams that consist of the physician, advanced practice provider and nurses, providing each patient with a dedicated team for the duration of their care.
The design of the building includes six stories of above ground space for the outpatient clinic. The new clinic, excluding parking structures, will add approximately 150,000 square feet to Fred Hutch’s clinical footprint in South Lake Union. For reference, our existing clinic is approximately 210,000 square feet. A fully-automated parking garage structure will provide an additional 160 parking stalls below ground. The new expansion will also connect to the existing building on Level 1, providing easy access between both buildings.
Designing and building this new expansion has provided an opportunity to explore new innovations for how we provide care and treatment at Fred Hutch. In addition to our new care neighborhood footprint, there are several other elements to the project.
Our clinical floors are being designed around an improved patient and family experience. In addition to reducing wait times, we have built in new features, such as respite areas or open spaces that may be limited in our existing facility. We are also planning a new café to provide another food and coffee option to complement the Red Brick Bistro in our existing space.
Yes, we will be expanding our imaging and procedural capabilities by adding new services and equipment, such as a CT angiography suite and new MRIs and PET/MRIs.
An innovative feature of this project is that it will have a fully automated parking garage (the first-in-health care in the U.S.). This parking garage will offer consistent and easy access to parking for patients and eliminates the need for a separate passenger elevator system. The automated parking garage will be a valet drop-off experience and can accommodate most large vehicles. Patients may still choose to use the existing valet service or self-park in the existing garage, as well.
The intent was to create a building that fit into the Fred Hutch campus ‘theme’, but that was also immediately obvious to patients as being the clinic. The project leveraged an “Integrated Facilities Design” process where a diverse team of end-users created the basic footprints of the space and designed the clinics from their perspectives and needs. The Operational Design Team consisted of about 50+ people, including providers, nurses, clinicians, patients and many other key stakeholders.
From table-top exercises and conceptual designs, full life-size mock-ups of clinics were built in cardboard to simulate and test workflow. Staff tours also were held to capture additional input and perspectives. Several iterations were made over time until a design was captured. The extensive use of exterior windows brings in natural light on all sides of the building.
