On Tuesday, May 19, Rady Children’s Health Orange County (formerly CHOC) hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Special Delivery Unit on the 4th floor of the Bill Holmes Tower. Murray Company Project Manager Rosemarie Edquid attended the event, along with Jacobs Project Manager Kanaka Rajagopal, to witness this historic milestone, more than a decade in the making. Jacobs Engineering, Cannon Design and Murray Company (plumbing and HVAC scopes of work) and other valued trade partners worked tirelessly since 2023 to help bring this vision to life.
During the welcome and opening remarks, President and CEO of Rady Children’s Health Orange County Kimberly Chavalas Cripe expressed sincere gratitude to the doctors, staff, and Boards of Directors whose dedication helped bring this vision to life. She reflected on the journey that began over 10 years ago, when the Rady Children’s Health team traveled across the country visiting leading hospitals in search of inspiration, innovation, and validation for their dream of creating a world-class Fetal Care Center and Special Delivery Unit for complex pregnancies and deliveries. Kim commended the courage, perseverance, and vision of everyone involved.
Next, the beloved Rady Children’s Health mascot, CHOCO bear, participated in the ribbon-cutting, bringing a smile to everyone’s face while marking the opening of this center.
The Fetal Care Center and Special Delivery Unit will provide a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach by bringing together maternal-fetal medicine specialists, pediatric surgeons, neonatologists, radiologists, geneticists, and other experts to work side by side in real time with a shared purpose. This integrated model allows the team to move from reactive care to proactive planning and coordinated treatment, helping guide families through some of life’s most difficult journeys with greater confidence and support.
Designed specifically for mothers and babies requiring immediate evaluation, resuscitation, and intervention when every second matters, the unit represents a major advancement in pediatric and maternal healthcare. According to Rady’s Health, this is Southern California’s only children’s hospital-based center with the full capability to perform neonatal interventions and fetal surgeries weeks — and in some cases months — before a child is born.
For the past 3 years, Murray Company’s HVAC and plumbing teams have been onsite building out the shell spaces on level 6 (CVICU), level 7 (NSU), level 3 (IR and OR’s 8 & 9), level 1 (MRI), and level 4 (MFC). This 4th floor center is broken up into outpatient and inpatient spaces and Murray Company had deliverables in each of them.
Rosemarie Edquid shares, “In the outpatient spaces, we installed the plumbing systems (domestic water, waste & vent piping, exam room sinks, restroom lavatories and water closets) and HVAC system (ductwork, CAV’s, heating hot water piping, air distribution grilles, registers, and diffusers). The inpatient spaces consists of patient rooms including airborne infection isolation and ante room, cesarean and delivery operating rooms, infant resuscitation room, and PACU in which we installed med gas system (med gas piping, outlets, valve boxes, alarm panels) and plumbing systems (domestic water, waste & vent piping, restroom lavatories, water closets, shower fixtures) and HVAC systems (ductwork, CAV’s, humidifiers, GRDs including HEPA laminar flow diffusers, pressure monitors for the OR’s and isolation rooms).”
Above are images of just some of Murray Company’s deliverables at this Special Delivery Unit.
