Intermountain plans a downtown replacement for LDS Hospital

Intermountain Health unveiled plans on September 2 for a replacement LDS Hospital at 745 South State Street in downtown Salt Lake City. The roughly eight-acre site formerly held a Sears store.

The plan includes a ten-story hospital with more than 521,000 square feet and an attached seven-story medical office building. For contractors, this is a project to follow through design and procurement. The announcement does not provide a start date for the building structure or a completion date.

Site work is the present milestone

Intermountain's announcement says planning and development are underway, including work to prepare the site. It expects further milestones later in the year.

The existing Avenues hospital will continue serving patients while the new campus is developed. The owner has made no final decision about the old campus's future use.

The planned clinical scope includes emergency and intensive care, imaging, surgery, behavioral health and newborn services. Those uses give electrical, communications and controls firms a reason to watch the design, but a department list is not an issued equipment schedule.

Why a replacement changes the contractor's questions

A new campus lets the owner design building systems for a new layout. It also requires a transfer plan for equipment, services and staff when the new hospital is ready.

Before bidding, establish whether the hospital and medical office building share utility and system infrastructure. Then identify the work that belongs to tenant or clinical fit-outs. Combining both buildings into one headline does not mean they have one buyer or one turnover date.

For low voltage firms, the useful early documents will define network rooms, backbone routes, device systems and acceptance responsibilities. Electrical and controls firms need the utility plan and equipment requirements for the clinical spaces. Hiring can follow an actual package schedule when those documents are available.

The economic forecast needs a definition

Intermountain says the project is expected to support approximately 2,000 jobs and more than $1.1 billion in annual local economic impact. It does not identify those 2,000 as construction jobs. They should not be advertised as vacancies for tradespeople.

The announcement provides a site, building scope and preparation stage. Project wages, trade awards and major construction dates remain unreported. The Utah electrician pay report is state context for an eventual offer, not a hospital wage schedule.