Guthrie Big Flats

Located in a major retail hub in Big Flats, NY, Guthrie’s Medical Office Building Renovation involved the adaptive reuse of 61,000 sf within a former home improvement store into a state-of-the-art medical office building.

The existing building shell presented numerous challenges and opportunities. The large single-story floor area was ideal for providing easily accessible spaces for Guthrie’s patients but also had large land-locked areas without pre-existing sources of natural light. The tall structural grid provided opportunities for high ceilings but also made creating private spaces with
good acoustics more difficult. The existing concrete floor slab was in great condition to be reused but required miles of trenching for new plumbing.

The iconic Chase-Pitkin facade was updated to better reflect Guthrie’s brand, and a canopy was added for patients being dropped off. New skylights and windows were strategically located to provide natural light in both public areas and staff workspaces. Public areas also took advantage of the tall structure with soaring ceiling heights, and patient areas with lower ceilings were constructed with a structural “lid” above to achieve acoustical privacy.

The layout and design follow lean principles with on-stage/off-stage patient and staff flow, in keeping with Guthrie’s long-term strategies. With 40 exam rooms and separate suites for imaging, occupational medicine, and physical therapy, the project achieved and exceeded all of Guthrie’s goals for the design.

Big Idea

Reimagining a vacant big box to fit modern healthcare needs