healthcare Archives - Sarah Constructions

As a South Australian, family-owned business, Sarah Constructions has a strong desire to support people of all ages in the state. With a business culture that puts people first, Sarah was honoured to be selected as the Design & Construct Contractor for a one-of-a-kind, progressive retirement village community being built on Smart Road in Modbury.

As one of the largest not-for-profit providers of integrated retirement living accommodation and ageing care services in SA, ECH (Enabling Confidence at Home) enables people to remain living confidently and independently at home as they age.

Tackling loneliness and social isolation is a major factor in enabling confidence and helping people remain connected to their communities. With the recent topping out of the unique ECH Smart Road Development – Encore Apartments – which features an SA Montessori Early Learning Centre (ELC), Sarah Constructions are excited to help deliver a new retirement village that has been designed to support and create a connected community.

Supporting human connection in retirement living

ECH Chief Executive Dr David Panter says the Encore Apartments ‘vertical village’ will provide “apartment-style living whilst also fostering an important sense of community and social connections to enable people to have the best possible life as they age.”

Encore Apartments, featuring 77 2-bedroom apartments, has been designed to bring the traditional retirement living village atmosphere, with its strong focus on ‘neighbourliness’, to vertical living by creating spaces that encourage interaction. Residents will experience ‘a real sense of belonging’ through access to shared community gardens, an on-site café, community centre and wellness facilities.

Sarah Constructions Senior Project Manager, Robert Maiolo, explains the purpose behind this unique project.

“In building these apartments, ECH is looking to bring people together from across the community. They want the residents to have the ability to easily connect.”

Connection is the antidote to loneliness and a range of other health problems. This philosophy permeates throughout the site design. From the community gardens enabling residents to interact in an outdoor setting to the shared internal recreation spaces, community café and even apartment entrances, working with the design team, Sarah Constructions will deliver integrated capability for human connection across the development.

A unique, connected, intergenerational community

Encore Apartments is one of Australia’s first retirement villages to incorporate an SA Montessori Early Learning Centre. The partnership between ECH and SA Montessori integrates an ELC into the $44.2M, Smart Road development.

The interaction between Encore Apartments residents and the ELC will create a one-of-a-kind, community-centred independent living experience, providing opportunities for intergenerational activities in the community centre. Residents will be able to participate as little or as much as they choose.

“The community centre features an activity space, community hall, library, lounge and meeting room which will provide many opportunities to engage with the SA Montessori and broader community,” says Dr David Panter.

“It is not just retirement living but community living.”

The Sarah design team worked closely with ECH to meet their Liveable Housing Design Gold Standard, considerable attention has been given by the team to ensure the construction outcome is a harmonious balance of functionality, in terms of accessibility, safety and handrails etc, combined with the overall vision for homeliness, comfort and community.

“Our effort has been to make sure that the finished space is fully compliant with the Gold Standard while catering for ECH residents. The team is committed to understanding and then delivering on the constructability of these standards, making sure that we communicate not only across our team but also to the sub-contractors,” says Robert Maiolo.

Aligning values to create ideal construction outcomes

Believing that best practice construction management is about building relationships, one of Sarah’s core values is to put people first. ECH does the same. “People have always been the main focus, not only in regard to the buildings end-use but also in its delivery,” says Robert Maiolo.

This alignment of values between ECH and Sarah Constructions has seen the team collaborate extremely well on all aspects of the project. An alignment of values, experience and approach are responsible for its successful progression to top out stage, despite obvious COVID-19 challenges.

“We have proven experience for the type, size and nature of this project, combined with an excellent understanding of both the client requirements and end-user priorities. Our team is excited to work collaboratively with ECH and the wider project team to deliver positive outcomes for this project,” commented Adrian Esplin, Sarah Constructions CEO.

From the client’s perspective, Sarah’s collaborative approach has been extremely valuable. “Sarah Constructions was able to provide independent industry advice to assist the consultant team to improve design solutions whilst maintaining project integrity and fulfilling ECH goals,” said ECH Chief Operating Officer, Dorothy Nycz.

“Sarah Constructions was chosen for this project not only due to their recent experience and success on similar retirement living projects but also by practicing every day their promise to build relationships and communities.”

For a sneak peek inside Encore Apartments, you can book an appointment to visit the display suite recently completed by the Sarah team at the ECH Greenhill Rd office. It provides an example of a finished unit with kitchen, bathroom and living area. More information is available at the ECH website, whilst you can find the latest ECH timelapse from October here.

By Jay Johnson, Project Manager.

Transforming the existing SPORTSMED Stepney site into a state-of-the-art healthcare hub that provides a one-stop-shop for patients, while minimising impact to ongoing site access, was not a simple task.

As a Project Manager, I’m passionate about what I do. To ensure we delivered results of the highest quality, it was critical that we worked closely with SPORTSMED Stepney to understand and support the needs of their patients. That’s why I’m particularly proud of our work on their recent expansion.

While the existing facility continued operations, 5 separate tenancies were developed. Three of these – Dr Jones & Partners, Clinpath and Terry White Chemists – were fitted out by the tenants’ own contractors under Sarah’s supervision.

This expansion makes it possible for patients to undertake their entire healthcare journey from diagnosis and treatment (including hospital stay) through to rehabilitation, all in one location.

A stress-free experience for the client

With multiple contractors on site, including those completing the individual fitouts for Terry White, Dr Jones, and Clinpath, it was important that the entire process be managed on SPORTSMED’s behalf.

Without Sarah managing that process, there would have been 5 different builders working inside a shell without an end target, or a consistent focus on quality, time and money.

From quality control to compliance with statutory regulations, car parking, staging and safety, Sarah ensured that the project ran smoothly. This meant SPORTSMED could concentrate on servicing their patients.

The entire project was run to best suit SPORTSMED Stepney operations. Of course, this was challenging at times. The power shutdown, for example, was coordinated on a Sunday to make sure there was minimal impact to SPORTSMED. This doesn’t sound like much. However, getting a statutory body like SA Power Networks to agree to perform works on a set day within a 2 hour window is a mammoth task.

A massive amount of planning and negotiation by Sarah ensured that the power went off for 2 hours only, and was up and running again by a certain time. That was huge for us to get over the line. The client probably gave it about 2 seconds thought, which means we did our job well.

Commitment and delivery

We’ve been consistently available to provide guidance and manage any teething issues throughout the handover. That’s what Project Management is all about. It’s about problem solving. A Project Manager is there to oversee and manage issues.

Client satisfaction is one of my main focuses on a project. Completing your own construction brief is one thing. But supervising other people’s is another. But we do it to ensure the job gets done properly.

You could see on this project that everyone was passionate about what they were doing, in the amount of extra time, weekends and abnormal start times that went on.

We wanted to be there for the client. That shows how much we care about what we do.

A convenient experience for SPORTSMED Stepney patients

CEO of SPORTSMED·SA Alan Morrison made clear that the patient experience was their primary concern:

“What we are trying to do at SPORTSMED·SA is really integrate as many aspects of the patient journey into the one hub so they can transition seamlessly between them all in one episode of treatment and care.”

Working closely with Hassel Architects, the Sarah team had a clear vision of the convenience the client was trying to achieve at SPORTSMED Stepney. Patients could see the doctor, have scans at Dr Jones and Partners, have surgery in the hospital, visit Clinpath for pathology services, get their prescriptions from Terry White, and grab a coffee in the cafe while they wait for results, all in the same location.

Pride and professionalism

At the end of the day, it’s about reputation. We have a level of professionalism to which we want to be held accountable.

At Sarah, it’s our flexibility and solutions focus that adds value for our clients. And that’s really what the Stepney expansion is about for SPORTSMED. It’s about adding value for their patients.

“We’ve got the best medical care here, that’s covered. So it’s about giving our patients the very best experience, above and beyond the treatment they receive here.” CEO SPORTSMED

It’s not a fun time when you’re injured or receiving treatment, so creating a more pleasant environment with conveniences all in the one location was a job worth doing for the Sarah team.

Tags: healthcare

Tag Archives: healthcare

ECH Topping Out: New Vibrant, Vertical Retirement Village in the heart of Modbury