Hundreds of hardhat-crowned construction workers and suit-wearing dignitaries watched as the beam floated higher and higher, an American flag temporarily affixed to one end and the leaves of a small tree affixed to the other end waving in the breeze.
The ceremonial “topping” event yesterday signaled a major milestone, a halfway point of sorts, for the construction of a new set of patient pavilions and a diagnostics and treatment center at the hospital, which is undergoing a $700 million expansion and renovation to meet seismic standards.
“This is really an event to celebrate and honor those of you who are building this structure,” Ron Werft, president and CEO of Cottage Health System, said as he looked out over a sea of workers clad in orange safety vests.
Four years ago, major construction on the extensive effort began with a groundbreaking ceremony for a new energy center, which has already been completed. Once the new pavilions and treatment center are completed — by 2011, construction officials said — patients and staff will make the move to allow for the renovation of several existing buildings.
The major steel structures that have gone up along Junipero Street, Oak Park Lane and Pueblo Street will eventually frame 41,000 tons of concrete, 1,327 doorways, more than 34 acres of drywall and enough piping to reach to Ventura and back.
“I think we can safely say this is the largest project we’ll ever do,” Werft said. “We’re out of room on this land.”
Although Cottage Health Systems is putting $600 million toward the rebuilding efforts, community donors have pitched in an additional $110.8 million since fundraising began five years ago.
Along with the patient wings and treatment center, the structure will feature the hospital’s new main entrance. A total of 200 tradesmen are currently hard at work on the site, and officials estimate that the project will employ upwards of 350 workers at the peak of construction.
Steve Mynsberge, executive vice president for healthcare services for McCarthy Building Companies, the general contractor on the project, praised the men and women who are actually putting their hands to steel to put the structure together.
“We’re off to a great start, all of us working together, but we have a long way to go and we’re going to push hard all the way to the end,” he said.
Once the expansion and renovation is complete, the hospital will have doubled the size of its emergency department and trauma center, allowing it to handle 80,000 visits a year. All 337 patient beds will be in private rooms, which will include a family area with furniture that converts to beds for overnight stay.
Other features of the new hospital will include a helipad for emergency landings, an expansion of the surgery department, and a third floor dedicated to children described as a “hospital within a hospital.”
Before a massive crane hoisted the steel beam — one of the final structural pieces to the puzzle — Werft told the crowd a personal story about his grandfather, who worked as a pipefitter in Knoxville, Tenn.
A common family event when he visited would be to take a trip through the guts of one of the dams his grandfather built while working with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
“He’d walk us through these places and he’d talk about ‘my dams,’” Werft said, adding that he hopes the hundreds of workers building the new hospital will carry that same sense of ownership. “I hope that you’ll be telling your grandchildren some day, ‘That’s my hospital.’”