St. Luke's Health System, Lake View

Critical Access Hospital and Clinic Expansion and Renovation

A home-like waiting area showcases views to the outside community and a cozy fireplace.
Looking down into the new wrapping stairwell leading to the hospital.
The new welcome desk offers a spacious waiting area and private check-in rooms.
Overall exterior view of the campus entry and new addition between the existing hospital and clinic.
A typical exam room in the Lake View campus.
A new infusion space offers options for shared or private infusion.
A check-in desk at a nurse station with privacy shields and warm wood tones.
The new pharmacy space with rolling storage shelves and staff workstations.
A site plan of the Lake View campus shows the addition between the existing hospital and clinic facilities.

St. Luke's Health System, Lake View

Critical Access Hospital and Clinic Expansion and Renovation

Two Harbors, Minn.

Top Projects of 2020, Finance & Commerce, Minnesota

Surrounded by nature and community, the Lake View campus in Two Harbors, Minn., crests a small hill that overlooks nearby Lake Superior and the town’s adjacent golf course. With the hospital founded in the 1950s and the clinic acquired in 2008, the existing campus had split healthcare services between physically separated facilities. Lake View teamed with BWBR to master plan and implement a design to connect the two buildings, as well as provide a functional platform for Lake View to evolve and grow its community wellbeing and care services, helping residents of the north shore achieve top quality health care close to home.

Phase 1 utilizes an addition to create a unified front door and improved patient experience, emulating the local natural landscape’s blues, grays, and iron ore to create a calming and familiar environment. No longer required to cross an open parking lot to access services, patients and staff instead experience a soothing connection that bends and wraps the facilities together, just as the lakeshore hugs the town. The central hub designates space for specialty clinics and improves operational efficiencies by co-locating hospital and clinic laboratories, locating urgent care and outpatient infusion adjacent to the clinic, and centralizing an expanded inpatient pharmacy. The master planning efforts set the facility up for further future expansion, right-sizing departments, and appropriate departmental adjacencies.

Size: 41,000 sq. ft.

Components: Combined specialty clinic services; co-located hospital and clinic laboratories; relocated urgent care and outpatient infusion adjacent to the clinic; centralized, expanded inpatient pharmacy; new community gathering space; master plan for future phases to co-locate the hospital and clinic radiology departments, relocate emergency services, and address inpatient needs

Completion: 2020