Behind the scenes tour of the new $400M UAB Medical West hospital in Bessemer/McCalla [PHOTOS]

When you walk into the entrance of the nearly completed $400 million UAB Medical West hospital, you are greeted by three stunning depictions of Cahaba lilies.

The walls look like the shoals in the nearby Cahaba River and the space makes you feel you are serenely watching the river’s rushing waters.

“We tried to bring nature into the hospital.”

Keith Pennington, CEO and President

Read on to learn about the new UAB Medical West Hospital.

UAB Medical West focus on wellness

On June 27, Bham Now took a special behind the scenes tour of the new UAB Medical West facility which is opening this August. 

Located at 4501 Bell Hill Road in the Bessemer /McCalla area, the hospital and campus includes: 

• 412,000 square foot, 9-story hospital with 200 beds 
• 127,000 square foot, 7-story medical office building
• 12 operating rooms
• 38 critical care beds
• Endoscopy suite
• State-of-the-art imaging technology 
• A pond in front of the hospital with walking trail
• And much more

In addition to the most modern and state of the art medical technologies the way the place is designed is what captures your heart.

Only 20 miles from the Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge, the hospital not only features the iconic lilies, it adopted local native plants and trees to highlight each floor at the hospital.

For example, the third floor, which attends to women’s services including labor and delivery, is named the Azalea floor. Other floors are named after the Tulip Poplar, Southern Magnolia and Flowering Dogwood.

“We tried to bring nature into the hospital. We’ve got a lot of features, fireplaces, rocking chairs like on a front  porch. You’ve got rock walls. You’ve got all this art from Alabama artists. You’re going to see that throughout the hospital. 

What we really wanted to do was not focus on the illness, but focus on wellness.”

Keith Pennington, CEO and President

In addition to what they did inside the hospital, UAB Medical West kept many natural features on its campus — the old trees and a natural pond with a path for people to stroll around.

The UAB Medical West team

All this was made possible by a very talented team of architects, construction contractors and engineers. They included:

• Brasfield & Gorrie as the general contractor
• HKS Architects & Designers and KPS Group as the architects of the development
• CCI, Bhate Geosciences and Building & Earth as the site engineers

Pennington summed up the feeling of the community best about the new hospital:

“I think everybody’s just really, thrilled, emotional and very proud of what they see, because it goes above and beyond what you think a hospital is going to look like.”