Cone Health MedCenter Greensboro on Drawbridge Parkway
Owner Cone Health (Greensboro, NC), a not-for-profit health care delivery system, set out to connect and integrate health and wellness services in one location with the creation of MedCenter Greensboro on Drawbridge Parkway northwest of Greensboro, NC
Opening in December 2021, the 200,000-square-foot clinic and freestanding emergency center introduces wellness components within this project by creating public spaces to engage and teach healthy habits.
The spaces are carefully designed to support the teaching of healthy eating and cooking, exercise and mindful movement, in addition to the services traditionally offered in a clinic and freestanding urgent care center.
The facility includes primary care, behavioral health, counseling, a cancer center, women’s health, urgent care, cardiac and vascular care, imaging, outpatient orthopedic rehabilitation, sports medicine and plastic surgery services. Also included is a café, retail pharmacy, Sagewell Health & Fitness and a training kitchen.
Wellness is provided in a unique environment at this facility, both indoors and outdoors. Programs hosted in studio-based fitness and rehabilitation classrooms, a basketball gymnasium, and a full aquatics program are included to augment this community-based facility.
The exterior’s most prominent feature, the “front porch,” is intended to represent a home’s front porch, an architectural reference to community, conversation, and shelter. The porch becomes the backdrop to the fitness space with an indoor running track that allows views both into and out of the facility. The fitness space is created on the first floor and is activated through the connecting outdoor patios for group activities.
The four-story eco-friendly facility includes a mezzanine within the fitness/rehabilitation center. The orientation of the building was carefully positioned to minimize heat build-up, while shades were introduced to block the harshest sunlight but still allow views of the outdoors.
Several features were implemented within the project and positioned to be enhanced from the outdoors, such as the common rooms overlooking the courtyard, the swimming pools with large windows overlooking the wooded landscape, and the fitness area overlooking the terraces and trees beyond.
The campus is woven into the greater Greensboro community as a destination with a direct connection to the Bicentennial Greenway, a multi-use regional trail that runs through several counties in North Carolina that residents can use for recreation or alternative forms of transportation.
Maximizing the use of the site, Cone Health chose to develop an integrated parking facility attached directly to the facility. This allows more of the site to be fully developed for outdoor activities and garden spaces, while allowing a direct and secure connection for visitors with extremely short travel distances and easy access to the building’s amenities.
Project details for Cone Health MedCenter Greensboro at Drawbridge Parkway:
Location: Greensboro, North Carolina
Completion date: December 2021
Owner: Cone Health
Total built up area: 202,438 sq.ft
Total construction cost: $107 million
Price/sq. ft.: N/A
Architectural Firm: Page Southerland Page Inc. (design architect), Odell (architect of record)
Interior design: (by agreement with the owner)
General contractor: Brasfield & Gorrie
Engineering: Associated Engineers (MEP), Fitzpatrick Engineering (Civil Engineering), Adams Electric Company (Electrical Engineering), McKenney’s Mechanical (Mechanical), Stimmel (Civil/Land Planning), WTI (Water), Covalus (Medical Equipment Planning)
Builder: Brasfield & Gorrie