This 330,000-sq-ft expansion presented challenges in accommodating the existing hospital on the east side of the project. One 50-ft by 50-ft section of the existing surgery wing was removed to create space to tie in the new tower. This included isolating eight operating rooms with 40 planned shutdowns to refeed the main HVAC distribution as well as other critical systems serving the operating room floor. In addition, as a part of the new tower, a 190-ft-long foot bridge was constructed to improve patient flow between the tower and the existing buildings.
The bridge was built over the existing medical office building and ties into three existing buildings at three different levels including a three-story fully occupied patient atrium. Half of the steel for the bridge had to be set without the tower crane used over existing facilities. Braces had to be engineered to mount to the existing hospital columns to place steel support beams for the bridge. All of this was done over an occupied facility where prep work had to take place in surgical departments, patient rooms and occupied offices. Countless hours of preparation went into placing the steel pieces using a combination of tower crane, roustabout hoists, chain falls and a Spydercrane.