SAN ANTONIO, TX -- (Marketwire) -- 10/15/09 -- SmithGroup, a leading architecture and engineering firm, and joint venture partner Marmon Mok, celebrated the recent groundbreaking of the New Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center, a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to treatment of military personnel and veterans suffering from the physical and mental effects of war including burns, limb loss, spinal cord injury, depression and traumatic brain injury. The project is being constructed at the Audie Murphy VA Hospital in San Antonio, Texas.

The $66 million, 84,000-square-foot facility will be one of only five Level 1 Polytrauma Rehabilitation centers in the country, and the only one in the Southwest. Designed to reflect healing, the center will provide supportive areas for patients and families with panoramic murals, natural colors, and ample natural light. The New Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center will be completed in 2011. Robins & Morton Construction Co. of Birmingham, AL is the lead construction contractor.

This project represents SmithGroup's growing expertise in Department of Defense (DoD) rehabilitation centers. SmithGroup recently designed two new DoD Centers of Excellence for wounded soldiers -- The Center for the Intrepid, located in San Antonio, Texas (completed in 2007), and the National Intrepid Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury located at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The National Intrepid Center of Excellence is currently under construction and plans to open spring, 2010.

SmithGroup (www.smithgroup.com) ranks as the nation's 7th largest architecture and engineering firm (Building Design & Construction, July 2009) and employs 800. Established in 1853, SmithGroup is the longest continually operating architecture and engineering firm in the U.S. with eleven offices nationwide.

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