The Client
Fletcher Allen Health Care, Inc., Vermont's largest hospital and health care provider.

The Project
To stay ahead of health care's rapidly changing technology and patient care standards, Fletcher Allen needed to make significant changes to its main hospital campus, a maze of buildings erected between 1876 and 1985 adjacent to the University of Vermont in Burlington.

The Challenges
• Campus expansion plans included demolishing seven older buildings totaling 245,000 square feet.
• In their place, 680,000 square feet of new construction would enlarge the existing hospital with an additional 1,250 space underground parking garage.
• Since the original facility first opened in 1876, densely populated neighborhoods had sprung up around the perimeter of the hospital.  Residents and regulators had concerns about the redevelopment project that included circulation, traffic, lake view restrictions, aesthetics, stormwater, and noise.
• Given the scope of work, the $335 million redevelopment project faced one of the most complex permitting processes in the state's history to meet federal, state, and local regulations.

The Solutions
• Fletcher Allen Health Care contracted White + Burke to manage the entire land use and environmental permitting process.  Working with an enormous project team that included noise consultants, historic preservationists, storm water experts, architects, attorneys, civil engineers, landscape architects, economists, and more, we orchestrated dozens of permit applications and amendments over the course of seven years.
• Due to the scope, complexity and timing of the project, permits needed to be obtained before the designs were final.  This required thoughtful coordination with regulators and numerous permit amendments to take care of inevitable plan changes.  We had lead responsibility for all aspects of this process, including developing permit strategies, preparing local and Act 250 permit applications and narratives, maintaining communication with regulators, acting as one of the primary presenters at public hearings, advising on and keeping track of plan changes that required permit amendments, and tying up innumerable loose ends.
• During the process, we facilitated and advised on plan amendments in hundreds of areas from building height to guardrail aesthetics in order to meet the permit requirements set by each regulatory body.
• We regularly attended public meetings with neighborhood residents to hear their concerns, discuss possible solutions, and keep the community informed during each stage of the process.  We played a key role in developing solutions to their concerns and those of others.

The Outcome
The project received city approval in July 2000 and Act 250 approval in March 2001.  Construction began soon after and the new facility opened its doors in 2005.  Since then, we've enjoyed an ongoing relationship with Fletcher Allen that has included strategic consulting on the organization's master plan, permitting for their new radiation oncology wing, and brokerage services at various times when the hospital needed several new outpatient clinics.