CommonSpirit St. Anthony North Hospital Bed Tower

A second chance to make a first impression.

The challenge

Building at the front door

Every major hospital expansion asks the same question first: where does growth belong? For St. Anthony North, the answer was the boldest one possible—directly at the hospital's main entrance. Placing a new five-story bed tower at the campus's most visible, most used threshold meant tackling extreme construction complexity on a fully operational campus. It also meant something rarer: a genuine second chance to define how patients and visitors experience arrival.

The addition needed to connect seamlessly to an existing three-story atrium, preserve a beloved exterior garden, and keep the original lobby intact, all while introducing a taller, more prominent form onto a campus with an established architectural language. Success meant the new tower had to feel inevitable, as if it had always belonged there.

The decision

A precious commodity

Early concepts imagined the tower floating on columns above the existing entrance, with beds stacked over a covered drop-off below — four floors of program, with a ground floor left open to the elements. During concept design, the team proposed something different: shift the entrance itself, positioning it adjacent to the new tower rather than beneath it.

The shift unlocked something the campus didn't know it needed. Repositioning the entrance freed the ground floor for occupiable space—relatively inexpensive to build and optimally located near the front of the hospital for a service line that depended on visibility and easy access. After a series of design and pricing studies, that space became a dedicated oncology center, giving the hospital's growing medical and radiation oncology programs a true front door of their own.

Built for tomorrow

Designed to grow

Behind the new front door, two floors of ICU and med/surg beds went into immediate use—but the fourth and fifth floors were left intentionally unfinished. Shelled space, built with exterior glazing and floor penetrations engineered to support future med/surg or ICU program, gives the hospital room to grow without disrupting the floors already in operation below. When the community' population is ready for more beds, construction can happen overhead without ever touching a patient care unit underneath.

Design for well-being

Chasing the light

A deep floorplate is efficient, but it can starve a building of daylight. The design team refused to let that happen here, treating corridors as conduits for sunlight and installing clerestory windows in the ground-floor oncology center so light could reach patients without compromising their privacy. That access to natural light does real work, helping regulate circadian rhythm for patients and staff.

Design for discovery

A team effort, tested and proven

A project this complex only comes together through a genuinely collaborative team. CommonSpirit's own leadership stayed closely engaged throughout design, the general contractor helped pressure-test constructability on an active campus, and design partner SmithGroup contributed alongside the BA team as prime architect. Everyone stayed open to revising course when feedback called for it, leading to improvements in exterior detailing and real cost savings along the way.

That collaborative discipline paid off in concrete terms: the project passed every water penetration test in its first round, backed by an energy consultant and building envelope consultant who scrutinized the design from every angle.

The result is a building that doesn't feel like an addition at all—it feels like the campus was always meant to arrive here.