Shape and size
The 4,000-square-foot kitchen was directly adjacent to a loading dock—and, conveniently, another dock already was being built at a nearby site. Because the UCMC dining team wasn’t sure if the entire footprint of the dock was needed, they ran through a variety of schematics, says Elizabeth Lockwood, project manager. And while the kitchen—which serves the CCD and Comer Children’s Hospital—may not currently need to feed more than 500 patients, there’s no telling what the future may hold.
“This was our big chance to rightsize the kitchen,” she says of the eventual decision to use the entire dock. Part of the plan included adding a T-shaped dual tray line so staffers could double their meal production capacity, a suggestion that came from hourly workers, says Daryl Wilkerson, the hospital’s vice president of support services. “Their input made the kitchen flow better,” he says.
Because the existing kitchen was only a year old, UCMC didn’t want to just trash perfectly good walk-in freezers and exhaust hoods. The foodservice and construction teams based many of their schematic designs on whether those items could remain in their current location. “What we’re talking about is the true challenge of renovation versus new construction,” says Connie Dickson, principal at Rippe Associates, UCMC’s foodservice consulting firm.
After six months of debating design and scenarios, the 12,000-square-foot project was approved with a $9 million budget.