When the Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans’ Hospital in Columbia faced a critical shortage of parking spaces, the solution required more than just adding a parking structure. It required a contractor who could self-perform complex concrete work and coordinate construction on an active healthcare campus where patient care never stops.
Pro-Prost Joint Venture, a Service-Disabled Veteran Enterprise, delivered Phase 1 of the new parking garage, with Prost Builders self-performing all concrete work on the project.
The Problem: Insufficient Parking at an Active Hospital
Healthcare facilities face unique challenges when it comes to parking. Patients need convenient access, especially those with mobility limitations. Staff need reliable parking for shift changes. Visitors need spaces close to entrances.
At the Truman VA Hospital, the lack of parking spaces had become a significant problem affecting everyone who used the facility. Adding capacity wasn’t optional — it was essential for the hospital to function effectively.
Why Healthcare Campus Construction Is Different
Building on an active hospital campus creates constraints that other construction sites don’t face:
- Patient care cannot be interrupted. Construction schedules, noise levels, and access routes all have to work around hospital operations that run 24/7.
- Access must be maintained. Emergency vehicles, patient transport, supply deliveries, and staff movement all continue during construction. Temporary closures require careful coordination.
- Safety protocols are stricter. When construction crews and hospital patients share the same property, site safety planning becomes more complex.
- Dust and debris control matters more. Healthcare environments require higher standards for air quality and cleanliness than typical construction sites.
- Schedules are less flexible. Some work can only happen during specific windows to minimize impact on patients and operations.
The Concrete Self-Performance Advantage
Parking structures are fundamentally concrete projects. The structural system, the ramps, the parking decks — it’s all concrete work that has to be executed correctly the first time.
Pro-Prost Joint Venture chose Prost Builders specifically because we self-perform concrete work with our own crews. This wasn’t subcontracted work coordinated through phone calls. It was Prost employees with decades of concrete experience building the structure.
Why this mattered for this project:
- Schedule control. When your own crews are doing the work, you control the schedule. There’s no waiting for subcontractors to fit you into their calendar or dealing with subcontractor labor shortages.
- Quality control. When concrete finishers report directly to your project manager, quality issues get caught and corrected immediately, not after they’ve become expensive problems.
- Coordination with hospital operations. When you need to adjust work hours, staging areas, or access routes to accommodate hospital needs, your own crews can adapt quickly.
- Problem-solving capability. When field conditions require adjustments — and they always do — crews with years of experience working together can solve problems faster than subcontractors meeting each other for the first time.
- Cost control. Self-performing eliminates subcontractor markup and gives you direct control over labor costs.
The Service-Disabled Veteran Enterprise Partnership
Pro-Prost Joint Venture brought together Pro Construction Services (a Service-Disabled Veteran Enterprise) and Prost Builders to deliver this project for veterans.
This partnership model works because it combines:
- Pro Construction Services’ veteran-owned business status and project management expertise
- Prost Builders’ self-performance capabilities and concrete expertise
- Shared commitment to serving those who served our country
The VA Hospital project wasn’t our only collaboration. Pro-Prost Joint Venture also served as general contractor for the Missouri State Capitol’s Great Window stained glass restoration project.
Project Scope and Impact
Phase 1 of the parking structure added significant parking capacity to the hospital campus, solving the access problems that had been affecting patients, staff, and visitors.
The completed structure provides:
- Multi-level parking to maximize capacity on limited land
- Weather-protected parking spaces
- Convenient access to hospital entrances
- Durable concrete construction designed for decades of heavy use
Beyond Parking: Other VA Hospital Projects
The parking structure wasn’t Prost Builders’ only work at the Truman VA Hospital campus. We’ve also completed warehouse expansion and renovation projects for the facility.
One notable project involved building a weather-tight enclosure around the entire warehouse, then removing and raising the roof to accommodate a new mezzanine for expanded storage space within the original warehouse footprint.
These multiple projects demonstrate our ability to work effectively on occupied healthcare campuses and deliver the specialized construction that medical facilities require.
What Healthcare Facility Projects Require
If you’re planning construction at a hospital, medical office, clinic, or other healthcare facility, several factors matter more than they do for typical commercial projects:
Can your contractor self-perform critical work? Concrete and structural systems are often on the critical path. Contractors who control those trades directly can deliver more reliable schedules.
Do they have healthcare construction experience? Medical facilities have unique requirements — infection control, patient access, operational continuity, regulatory compliance — that generic construction experience doesn’t prepare you for.
Can they coordinate around your operations? Healthcare facilities can’t shut down for construction. Your contractor needs to understand how to phase work and manage disruption.
Do they understand medical facility codes and standards? Healthcare construction involves specialized code requirements that differ from other building types.
Can they demonstrate completed healthcare projects? Look for verifiable references from other medical facilities, not just claims of capability.
The Columbia Healthcare Portfolio
Beyond the VA Hospital projects, Prost Builders has delivered other significant healthcare construction in Columbia and throughout Central Missouri, including the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center expansion, which doubled surgery capacity with six new operating rooms and twenty-four new patient rooms.
This portfolio of completed healthcare projects demonstrates our understanding of what medical facility construction requires and our ability to deliver complex projects on sensitive, occupied sites.
Why Concrete Expertise Matters
Parking structures live or die based on the quality of their concrete work. Poor concrete finishing creates drainage problems. Inadequate reinforcement leads to premature deterioration. Construction defects become expensive repairs within a few years.
When Prost Builders self-performed the concrete work on the VA Hospital parking structure, we brought crews who have worked together for years, many of whom started as apprentices and stayed with us through their entire careers.
That depth of experience shows in the finished product. This isn’t just a parking structure that meets minimum standards — it’s infrastructure built to serve veterans for decades.
Planning a Healthcare Facility Project?
Whether you’re adding parking capacity, expanding patient care areas, or building new medical facilities, the contractor you choose affects more than just the building itself. It affects your ability to maintain operations during construction, your project schedule, your budget, and the long-term quality of the completed work.
Look for contractors with:
- Demonstrated healthcare construction experience
- Self-performance capabilities for critical structural work
- Professional engineers on staff for technical problem-solving
- Understanding of how to work on occupied healthcare campuses
- Completed projects with verifiable references from medical facilities
Ready to discuss your healthcare facility project? Contact us to learn how our experience with medical facility construction and concrete self-performance capabilities can benefit your project. Or learn more about our work in Columbia.