By HFT Staff

EwingCole joined Essentia Health leadership and stakeholders for the official ribbon cutting of the new St. Mary’s Medical Center in Duluth, MN. After five years of design and construction, battling the elements and a global pandemic, Essentia’s staff is preparing to welcome new patients. 

The hospital and adjoining clinic represent millions of hours of work and a monumental shift in the medical landscape for the residents of northern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin. For EwingCole, this hospital is the largest healthcare project in the Philadelphia-based design firm's history. 

The project, dubbed Vision Northland, cost about $900 million and spans over 940,000 square feet across two city blocks on the banks of Lake Superior. St. Mary’s is the region’s only Level 1 trauma center, and the new hospital includes 16 operating rooms and 13 birthing suites. Equipped with the latest state-of-the-art technology and a reimagined healthcare delivery model, St. Mary’s Medical Center is set to redefine the continuum of care for the region’s patients. 

The project broke ground in September of 2019. The design team worked closely with the local construction crew McGough, architects at Duluth-based LHB, and sub-consultants throughout the process to overcome challenging environmental conditions, a global pandemic and supply chain disruptions. Essentia Health completed moving current patients into the new facility on July 30.