The Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo has moved to Buffalo’s medical corridor in a state-of-the-art 420,000 square foot facility. The John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital is one of 43 stand-alone children’s hospitals in the United States, and the only one in the state of New York. The general contractor, Turner Construction, contracted Danforth as the primary mechanical and plumbing contractor with installation scope of HVAC, plumbing, medical process piping, coordination of building controls, and fire stopping.

The 185 bed facility includes (14) state-of-the-art operating rooms, private level 3 NICU rooms, and a level 1 pediatric trauma center. The Danforth team installed all building heating/cooling systems and plumbing, as well as large, complex systems for proper room ventilation and process piping to handle the patient care functions required by all departments in the hospital. This included custom ductwork for HEPA filtration and piping for specialty medical gases needed in the surgical, emergency and NICU departments. Danforth’s shops fabricated 1.35 million pounds of sheet metal for ductwork and 40 miles of piping for the 12 story hospital. To house all facility systems, the design outlined 9 foot inter-story heights and a 2 story mechanical room, requiring 18 months of coordination for the Danforth CADD department. Our environmental services group provided commissioning and balancing services to all new systems.

With the building’s downtown location on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, storage and layout space on site was limited to non-existent. Danforth coordinated closely with the general contractor and other trades to provide just-in-time (JIT) site deliveries for all fabrication and mechanical units within our scope of work. Beyond the initial scope of work, $5.8 million in change order work was added to our contract, including 2 restaurants for patients and staff. Danforth completed this additional work with no change to the project completion date.

With the opening of the Oishei Children’s Hospital, there is a new standard for the care of Western New York’s children and a facility that is as comfortable as possible for patients and their families. Danforth is proud to have been the mechanical partner to Turner Construction and Kaleida Health, working to provide exceptional mechanical services that ensure the hospital staff can provide this necessary care to patients.