Inova Fairfax Medical Campus Donor Recovery Center

Address: 3300 Gallows Road, Falls Church

Project Type: Renovation

Project Size: 13,000 square feet

Project Cost: $24 million

Owner: Inova Health

Contractor: Hitt Contracting

Architect: HKS

Engineers: WSP (MEP); Cagley & Associates (structural); WDP (waterproofing)

The space was a basement-level cafe and kitchen — unremarkable, underutilized and well removed from the clinical floors above. What Hitt Contracting and Inova Health delivered there in six months is a leading-edge organ donor recovery center featuring surgical suites, multipurpose laboratories, patient care rooms and family support spaces purpose-built for organ and tissue recovery procedures.
The degree of difficulty was substantial. Converting a commercial food service space into a sterile clinical environment required a complete overhaul of structural and mechanical systems, all within an active hospital where disruption to ongoing operations was not an option.

New structural steel was installed to support rooftop air handling units, and six 10-foot-by-10-foot trenches were cut and refitted with new footers to handle high column loads within the constrained basement footprint. Access was so limited that the team maneuvered a mini excavator through interior doorways to avoid manual excavation and stay on schedule. Every electrical, mechanical, plumbing and sprinkler outage was carefully sequenced during off-peak hours in close coordination with Inova’s facilities teams.

The original project schedule was nine months. The go-live date — fixed to align with the operational readiness of Infinite Legacy, the nonprofit organ procurement organization the center was built to serve — compressed that to six months. Hitt delivered on time with zero safety incidents and no impact to hospital operations.

“This project transformed an underutilized space into a highly specialized clinical environment that expands access to organ donation,” says Kevin Daniels, vice president and business unit leader of healthcare construction at Hitt Contracting. “The Inova Fairfax Donor Recovery Center supports both clinical care and the needs of donors and their families during a critical time.”

The completed facility serves as a regional hub for organ donation across Northern Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., working in partnership with 68 hospitals and eight transplant centers.