“When [the COVID-19 pandemic] got on people’s radars, having this project that was already so close to completion made it the logical place to think about our options,” said Chris Pouncey, project manager with the school’s facilities, planning and construction department. “Our construction and design partners started spitballing ideas and concepts on how to create isolation wards in these units.”

Pouncey said the three floors were originally scheduled to provide a total of 84 ICU beds this summer, but to better accommodate the needs for COVID-19 care, the university decided to make the floors capable of negative air pressure.

Working with mechanical engineer BR+A and construction manager Skanska, the team found a way to use existing equipment to make roughly half of one floor an isolation ward. Pouncey said BR+A designed some rerouting that included using an existing fan to create an exhaust fan. He said the same design can be applied to the remaining floors. “It will require additional new fans, but the design concept is the same,” he added.

Pouncey said the exact completion date for each floor is fluid, but the goal is to open floors—or half floors—in multiple phases, as they are completed. “This has always been a multiphase project, and it’s become more so over the course of its life,” he said.

PennDOT Allows Certain Projects to Proceed

In a partial thaw in Pennsylvania’s statewide freeze on construction projects, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation is allowing 61 emergency and critically important highway, bridge and tunnel projects to move ahead. The projects have a total value of about $1 billion. Construction was also allowed to resume on four suspended Pennsylvania Turnpike projects—valued at $530 million­—pending a review of the contractors’ COVID-19-related jobsite safety plans.

The projects had been frozen in response to a directive suspending all construction statewide.