With a due date of early 2013, the new Shawnee Mission Birth Center features over 10,000 square feet of StoneLite® in Gascogne Beige limestone from Portugal. The natural stone panels are comprised of a thin stone veneer and an aluminum honeycomb backing sandwiched between impervious, high-strength, fiber-reinforced epoxy skin.
Shawnee Mission Medical Center also used StoneLite® when it expanded with the Critical Care Center Services building in 2007. The same Gascogne Beige Limestone was used with a similar stone joint grid pattern. The addition of the Birth Center is part of the hospital’s overall $116 million expansion.
The $42 million Birth Center is triple the size of the existing facility. With four stories and 90,000 square feet, it will feature 19 labor and delivery rooms, 36 private postpartum rooms and a 24-bed Level III neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The center will be able to care for as many as 30 babies at a time and handle 5,000 births annually.
“Our stone was chosen for this project because of its superior performance on the Critical Care Center building and its speed and ease of installation,” said Tim Friedel of Stone Panels.
“Our StoneLite® panels are one-fifth the weight of dimensional stone and provide our clients with huge savings regarding installation time, labor and structural requirements which are always major considerations in the design and implementation of any project.”
Friedel says the StoneLite® system and its installing components are accepted by the International Code Council (ICC) for unrestricted use as exterior cladding for Type 1 buildings. The key to getting accepted in that category is testing.
“Rigorous testing is another significant factor that architects and general contractors consider when choosing a stone,” said Friedel. “With millions of dollars invested in testing, we are the only product in our class that has been thoroughly scrutinized by leading global independent laboratories. Our testing covers acid freeze-thaw, air and water infiltration, structural and impact load, fire, attachment system, large missile impact, and more.”
Hoefer Wysocki Architects LLC designed the project and United Excel Corporation is the general contractor.
Stone Panels created and pioneered the unique stone cladding industry when developed and patented StoneLite® more than 40 years ago in Ireland. StoneLite® panels are available in thousands of natural stone choices including granite, marble, sandstone, slate, and limestone and are featured on projects around the world.
