Water line break impacts new hospital opening

The construction manager for the University Health Women’s & Children’s Hospital in the South Texas Medical Center, Joeris+JE Dunn, has confirmed that a fire sprinkler standpipe in one of the hospital’s stairwells ruptured on Wednesday, August 23, resulting in a significant amount of water flowing down the stairwell and onto hallways and adjacent rooms throughout the building. Over the past five days, restoration experts have been in the building assessing the damage, cleaning and removing moisture from the building. This work is ongoing.

It is too soon to know how long it will take to make all of the needed repairs, however, the construction manager is working diligently to make all repairs as quickly as possible. We anticipate opening the hospital this fall.

It is important to note that, because this is an active construction site and University Health has not yet taken possession of the building, all of the expenses related to this water damage are being handled by the construction manager and its insurance provider.

Joeris+JE Dunn have pledged to make these repairs as quickly as possible and are being proactive in ordering materials that will need to be replaced. While this is extremely disappointing and it is vitally important for us to open this new hospital to serve women, babies, and pediatric patients as soon as possible, the health and safety of our patients, visitors and team members is our highest priority.

Throughout this remediation process, our teams will ensure all of this work will be done right and fully inspected prior to opening the hospital. We will continue to keep our community informed.

For further questions, please contact:

Erin Lambert
National Marketing Director
erin.lambert@jedunn.com
913-269-5948