Seven months after the official groundbreaking of Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital’s $250 million expansion and campus modernization project, construction crews are kicking things into high gear now that milder weather has returned.
((CLICK HERE to see modernization renderings and read more about the project.))
Hospital President Karen Lambert led the Mortenson Construction team in a set of “bend and stretch” safety exercises after lunch on Monday.
She took the lead to highlight Advocate’s commitment to safety while helping kick off the first-ever Safety Week sponsored by Mortenson and thirty other leading firms promoting safety awareness on construction sites.
Karen says safety is at the forefront of their efforts every day at Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital and especially as crews accelerate their work with the start of the new construction season.
“We also start every day with a safety huddle at Good Shepherd to understand any concerns we may have and prepare for the day ahead. Safety is number one for us at Advocate, it’s number one at Mortenson and I’m leading these exercises today to show support and emphasize that we’re all in this together.”
Vice President and General Manager of Mortenson Construction and Barrington resident, Greg Werner, says construction workers at Good Shepherd Hospital gather twice daily for this series of exercises.
“From a construction safety standpoint, it’s really important and it does two things. It’s a way to gather everyone together for communication with the entire crew and we’ve also found these exercises reduce any sort of soft tissue injuries that are very common in construction so it’s had a wonderful impact.”
Greg says, with milder weather upon us, they’re eager to get their construction timeline back on target. “The best way to describe our winter was ‘brutal’. It was a very difficult winter and we’re excited to finally get started now that the weather is improving so there will be a lot of progress from now until next winter.”
Greg says, right now, crews are laying the foundation for the North Pavilion where many of the in-patient rooms will be located. “All of the concrete work will go on for another couple of months and then we’ll be able to start structural steel erection. That will create the new structure and frame for the building and will show a lot of progress very quickly when that starts.”
Crews are also excavating and changing the landscape of the lake in the front of the hospital by the main entrance and south parking lot.
They’re working on the new Diagnostic Testing Center for out-patient services which is on schedule to be complete this October.
They’re also preparing to reroute patient flow when they close the main hospital lobby for 18 months, starting this July. President Karen Lambert says the progress is exciting to watch, especially at this stage.
“People are seeing both the renovation inside the hospital where our new testing center will open this fall and they’re seeing the ‘hole in the ground’, as we call it, where the north tower will soon be built so it’s all very real now and these are very visible signs that things are moving forward.”
Greg Werner says right now they have about 50 people working on construction at Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital. He says that number will balloon to up to 200 craftspeople during the height of construction before the three year project is complete.
((CLICK HERE to see modernization renderings and read more about the project.))
Visit AdvocateHealth.com/GoodShepherdModernization for the latest photos from the construction site and updates on the project which is scheduled for completion in 2017.
