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December 14 2025 Vol. IX • No. 25
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Clark Construction Shapes Massive Western State Hospital
Construction began on the Western State Hospital’s new forensics center approximately a year ago.
By Lori Tobias CEG CORRESPONDENT
From nearly any angle, the Western State Hospital’s new forensic center merits superlatives — biggest, first, only. Even its history— built when the state of Washington was still a territory —deserves its own story. But today, the construction of the state’s nearly $1 billion project and, in terms of scale, the largest project undertaken by Washington, is the news making headlines. Groundbreaking on the $947 million project began a little more than a year ago, followed by the demolition of 11 buildings
— including a turn-of-the-century morgue. Clark Construction crews are now at work building the nine sectors of the campus that will include a 467,000-sq.-ft., 350-bed forensic behavioral health hospital for skilled psychiatric treatment, along with a 53,000-sq.-ft. administrative building. “As a state, we haven't done anything this large before and as DSHS (Department of Social and Health Services), and so I would say that's been our sort of biggest challenge,” said architect Kelly Lerner, senior project director of Western State Hospital construction finance, technology and analytics administration.
A utilities bank is positioned near Sector 8.
It also is being built under a GCCM — general contractor construction management — contract, which hasn’t been used by DSHS previously. The GCCM allows the architect and contractor to collaborate and bid on specific aspects of the job at the best time in the construction process, Lerner said. “There’s usually some cost savings associated with that, and it lets the project go a lot faster, because you don’t have to have the whole design fully baked before you're getting some of the subs in there.” The hospital is in Lakewood and serves people referred to DSHS by the court system because they are not competent to go for-
ward with court proceedings. The hospital’s role is to attempt to bring them back to “reasonable mental health,” so that they could go forward in the court system, Lerner said. Courtyard Design “It is a very innovative design. The whole hospital is built around courtyards, and at angles,” Lerner said. “You’ve got great daylight throughout. You've got elevated walkways that connect the wards to areas that are called the downtown areas. The whole hospital is designed to support people's recovery back to mental health.” see HOSPITAL page 10