Mercy Health Saint Mary’s 7N Renovation

INSIDE SCOOP

October 2013

Mercy Health Saint Mary’s 7 North Renovation

Demolition! www.elzinga-volkers.com

Upcoming Milestones »» Finish 6th floor elevator lobbies »» Complete demolition »» Start new framing layout »» Start through-floor mechanical and plumbing connections

Executive Summary The second major phase of the 7th and 8th floor renovations is off and running! Along with the new 7th floor renovation phase comes a new mix of subcontractors. Over the course of the next two years, this newly formed construction team will move together through the next three sections of the project. Upon completion, almost every portion of both the 7th and 8th floors will be entirely transformed.

At the recent project kick-off meeting, the team discussed the various challenges that will be faced throughout the job. Although the project comes with unique conditions, the group left eager and motivated to innovate solutions.

In addition to this conversation, the design team has been working to incorporate lessons learned from 8 North into the current set of projects. Overall, this exercise will help improve both construction efficiency and the quality of the finished product.

Currently, there is a flourish of activity on the north half of the 7th floor. Demolition crews did not skip a beat after the

area was turned over from patient use. The mechanical and electrical tradesmen are working quickly to shut down, re-route and remove any existing systems. Another group of workers is tearing out the walls, ceilings, floors, fixtures, doors and more.

Every last piece of debris is carted out of the construction zone, taken down the elevator and wheeled to a dumpster.

Before entering a public area, however, the carts pass through an anti-room where the rubble is covered and the cart wheels are cleaned. This procedure prevents the unwanted distribution of demolition debris throughout the hospital. Bin by bin, the floor will be cleared. It won’t be long before the space is emptied completely and construction can begin!

Joe Novakoski, P.E., LEED A.P. Vice President / Senior PM

Track the Project’s Progress as the Lake Grows!

Demolition

Rough-in

Drywall

Painting

Ceilings

Flooring

Casework

Furniture

The Look Ahead

Demo is well under way! We are all looking forward to seeing this portion of the work complete since it is very noisy and dusty. Next week, we will start to skim coat the floors and lay out the new walls.

When this is complete, we can locate new piping openings such as shower and floor drain holes. In a few weeks, we will start working on the underside of the floor, in the ceilings of the endoscopy and PMU suites.

-Joe Shashaguay, Field Manager

West corridor looking north

Previous nurse’s station

E&V crew hard at work

Old patient rooms

Inside Scoop | October 2013

Tearing down walls

www.elzinga-volkers.com

Did You Know?

Although we won’t use wrecking balls on our site demolition, they have a fascinating history and, for many years, were the number one most used tools for construction demolition.

the SS Great Eastern

The British ship iron scrapping company, Henry Bath and Co, claim to be the inventors of the wrecking ball. When confronted with demolishing their largest ships yet, the SS Great Eastern, the company realized that their labor costs would far outweigh the cost of iron scrapped. The metal hull of the ship seemed impervious to hand tools, so in an effort to find an easier, more cost effective way of tearing the old ship down,

Henry Bath set up a crane with an engine that could pull a multi-ton metal ball high enough that, when released, could damage the hull. Thus, the wrecking ball was born.

Wrecking balls have mostly gone out of style in the last decade because their demolition precision is much less accurate than long reach excavators. Instead of tearing down one area of the building, a wrecking ball would tear out all supporting walls and floors, typically trespassing onto spaces you wished to preserve. Yet they still show up in iconic movie scenes, particularly construction protest scenes (I’m thinking Two Weeks Notice with Sandra Bullock).

Sandra Bullock in Two Weeks Notice

SUBCONTRACTOR

SPOTLIGHT This month’s spotlight goes to X-treme Demolition. X-treme has stepped up their manpower to give us a great start on the 7 North project. Infection control & life safety always make the demo phase of construction complicated, but X-treme has done an awesome job monitoring this with us. GREAT JOB X-TREME!