Imaging & radiology suite build-outs
An imaging suite build-out turns a clinic room or MOB shell into a shielded, reinforced, power-ready space for X-ray, CT, fluoroscopy, mammography, or MRI equipment. Grandview Contractors builds radiology suites across Utah County and Salt Lake County under a Utah DOPL B100 general contractor license, to your physicist’s shielding report and your vendor’s site-planning drawings.
When an imaging suite build-out is the right page
This page is for projects where the imaging equipment drives the construction: a radiology group opening an outpatient imaging center, an orthopedic practice adding CT or MRI to a medical office building, or a landlord delivering a suite a radiology tenant can actually energize. It’s one specialty inside our medical, dental, and clinic build-out practice, part of Grandview’s broader renovation and build-out work.
If imaging is one room inside a larger clinic, start with the page that matches the practice: urgent care build-outs usually carry a single X-ray room, medical office build-outs cover the exam-room core, and surgery center build-outs often include C-arm fluoroscopy. Dental panoramic and cone-beam CT rooms live on the dental office build-out page.
What goes into a radiology suite build-out
Lead shielding for X-ray, fluoroscopy, and CT rooms
A qualified medical physicist’s shielding report specifies a lead thickness for each wall, floor, and ceiling, based on what’s on the other side and where the tube points. We install lead-lined gypsum board to that spec, lap the lead at every stud and joint, and back every electrical box, duct penetration, and door frame with lead so the shielding is continuous rather than nominal. Lead-lined doors and the leaded-glass control-booth window are ordered to the same report. CT rooms typically need heavier shielding, including floor and ceiling, which matters on an upper MOB floor.
The physicist or vendor inspects each shielded wall before it’s closed. Good work should not require detective work, so we photograph lead laps and box backing for the record.
MRI rooms: RF shielding, the magnet path, and the quench vent
MRI is a different build. Instead of lead, the room gets a radiofrequency shield — a copper or galvanized-steel enclosure supplied and installed by an RF-shield vendor. We deliver the room it fits into: non-ferrous framing where required, a floor built to the magnet’s weight, and a tested shield before finishes go on. The magnet also has to get in, so many MOB suites need a rigging route and a removable wall panel. The quench vent that carries helium outside in an emergency needs a straight, properly sized run to a safe exterior termination, detailed so Wasatch Front snow and ice can’t block it in January.
Structure, power, and cooling
CT gantries and MRI magnets load a floor in ways a tenant slab was never designed for, so the structural engineer checks the existing floor and we add reinforcement or steel where needed. Overhead tube cranes hang from a strut grid tied to the building structure, not the ceiling grid. Because this valley sits near the Wasatch fault, every anchored machine, cabinet, and shield panel gets seismic anchorage detailed and inspected to current Utah-adopted code.
Most modalities need dedicated feeders, often three-phase, plus emergency-off buttons and floor raceways for gantry-to-table cabling. CT and MRI shed steady heat, so the design includes dedicated cooling and, for MRI, a chiller loop. Grandview holds the contract and manages licensed electricians and mechanical contractors for that work, plus certified installers where a suite needs med-gas or suction; we coordinate, sequence, and quality-check it, as our MEP coordination page explains.
How an imaging suite build-out is sequenced
- Feasibility. We confirm the shell can take the equipment: floor capacity, ceiling height, electrical service, a magnet route, a quench-vent path. If it can’t, you learn that before the lease is signed.
- Physicist and vendor documents. The shielding report and site-planning drawings are finalized together, so the permit set carries real numbers.
- Plans review. Provo, Orem, and Salt Lake City run established commercial-review queues; Lehi, Saratoga Springs, and Eagle Mountain move fast on some reviews and slower on others. We quote the real number for your city.
- Structure and rough-in. Reinforcement, embeds, floor raceways, and support steel go in first; electrical and mechanical rough-in follows, every shielded penetration backed and documented.
- Shielding verification and close-up. Lead or RF shielding is inspected and signed off before drywall and finishes.
- Rigging, install, and acceptance. Equipment arrives on the planned route, the vendor installs and calibrates, and the physicist performs the post-installation survey. Utah requires X-ray equipment to be registered with the state radiation control program before clinical use; your physicist and vendor normally file that.
What drives the cost of a radiology suite build-out in Utah?
Modality drives everything. As ballpark planning language, not a quote: a single radiography room inside an existing clinic is the least expensive version of this work; a CT room costs more because of heavier shielding, reinforcement, dedicated power, and cooling; an MRI suite costs the most by a wide margin because of the RF shield, magnet weight, rigging, and chiller. Equipment is priced separately and usually dwarfs construction.
Within a modality, the movers are shielding thickness (lead-lined board costs several times what standard drywall does), which floor the suite is on, distance to the electrical room, and whether the slab can carry the load. Transfer clearances at the table and an accessible changing and restroom path per ADA standards add square footage, so they’re planned at the start.
Questions we actually get
Who designs the shielding — you or someone else?
A qualified medical physicist designs it; we build it. The report sets lead thickness per surface from your equipment, workload, and what’s beyond each wall. We install to it and have the physicist verify the room before close-up and again after the equipment is in.
Can we put an MRI or CT on the second floor of a medical office building?
Often, but it has to be engineered. The structural engineer checks the framed floor against the magnet or gantry weight and vibration limits, and reinforcement may be needed. The bigger question is usually the magnet route: stairs and elevators won’t do it, so a crane and a removable exterior panel get planned early.
What do you need from our equipment vendor before you start?
The current site-planning guide for the exact model: room dimensions, floor loading, anchor layouts, power and cooling requirements, raceway locations, and delivery route. Vendors revise these guides, so we confirm the revision matches the unit you ordered before rough-in, not after.
How long does an imaging suite build-out take?
Plan on four to eight months from physicist report to first patient for X-ray or CT, longer for MRI. Construction is rarely the long pole: equipment lead times, RF-shield scheduling, plans review, and post-installation testing drive the calendar, and we map them before committing to a date.
Tell us what you’re working on
We reply within a couple of hours during business hours — a day at most. You’ll get a straight read on scope, sequence, and budget before anyone commits to anything.