Quick Take with Karva Sykes

The idea for the campuses originated in 2022 when Sutter Health set a goal to double the patient base and add several hundred physicians by 2030. Sutter identified a significant gap in healthcare services in the Santa Clara region, where they saw an opportunity to achieve growth through adaptive reuse of two existing commercial sites rather than building ground-up. The plan also will include some new construction, particularly a 272-bed hospital, creating a world-class healthcare hub in this fast-growing community. 

When we started in fall 2023, Sutter had a clear idea of when they wanted to open the East Campus. Opening the Medical Office Building by October 2025 was critical path to set the stage for the remainder of the Master Plan for the two campuses, and the team had to work together to achieve this First Patient Day, no exceptions. We worked within an Integrated Form of Agreement, which is a collaborative project-delivery model between Sutter Health, HGA, DPR Construction, and several other partners. One of the biggest benefits of this approach was that it enabled early decision-making, eliminating feedback loops that can cause delays.

The team really came together to think creatively. HGA staffed an extraordinary group of medical planners, bringing a lot of flexibility to the process, along with the ability to stack stakeholder meetings to better align decision-making. Our structural engineering team, Buehler, really cleared the path forward for the rest of the team by doing early structural analysis and developing some brilliant solutions to retrofit a structural system that was not made for a medical facility.

A key advancement led by DPR, Southland Industries, and ArchKey Solutions was integrating prefabricated components, such as interior post-and-panel walls and shared rack systems constructed off-site to accelerate the timeline. Prefabrication puts us at the forefront of project delivery, demonstrating that we have a nimble team that can innovate in real time and adjust design processes to keep the project moving forward. 

We have hit a critical time where the population is aging, and healthcare needs are becoming more complex. This puts pressure on healthcare providers, and it puts pressure on the cost of care and the cost of facilities. Our clients are looking for ways to build and modernize faster and more cost-effectively. Both the challenges and solutions center on the quality of care and how we can design facilities that support it. 

I am so proud of the team I work with, from senior project leadership to entry-level colleagues. Without them, I could not do my job. Seeing their talent and professional growth motivates me to do better. And part of doing better is remembering that we are here to solve a problem in service to the community. If you boil it down, that is what most inspires me—problem-solving, whether at the team level, in business development, or through design. That‘s what drives me. 

Pursuing meaningful work is always on my agenda. But to do that, it gets back to having that amazing team I mentioned. We are in the middle of positive changes here in our California offices. I look forward to growing our team’s expertise and ensuring that when people think of a healthcare design firm at the top of its game, they think of HGA.