Tulane University School of Medicine Nursing Program 4th Floor Renovation

The Tulane University School of Medicine Nursing Program is a 26,000-square-foot clinical education facility built on the fourth floor of an operational medical center in downtown New Orleans. The project was executed while the hospital stayed open around it, with the freight elevator out of service, deliveries staged through the hospital’s active loading dock, and every utility tie-in run through a shutdown protocol that protected a working emergency department. The finished space includes a twelve-station simulation lab, a fully integrated audiovisual system, and exposed metal mesh and linear wood ceilings that left no plenum to conceal a coordination error. New plumbing was rerouted through the congested structure of a decommissioned operating floor below at no added cost to the owner, and a two-inch slab deflection was corrected before finishes could align. The most demanding scope was unforeseen at bid: a 3,500-square-foot interior courtyard, carried on the drawings as outside the contract, was found failing and open to weather at the center of a nearly finished floor. The team rebuilt it in a phased, containment-driven sequence that kept the occupied interior dry through demolition, broke out the slab, and closed the space with a new roof and drainage.