Hospital construction slowed by snowy February

SPRINGFIELD — The third snowiest February on record slowed construction at the new Springfield Regional Medical Center last month but the project is still on schedule, the project director said, Monday, March 8.

Cold and snow necessitated a plastic enclosure be installed around masonry workers as they laid bricks this winter. But with the anticipation of spring, those enclosures will be removed and masonry work will speed up, said Kevin O’Brien, project director for Danis Building Co., which is in charge of construction.

More than 222,000 bricks will enclose the 475,000-square-foot hospital.

“This month the roof materials are being delivered and we are on target to start the roof mid-March,” he said. “We expect the 200-person workforce this winter ... will grow to (more than) 300 by the end of spring.”

The goal is to have the exterior of the building “substantially complete” by the end of fall, O’Brien said.

Inside the four-story structure, mechanical duct-work and piping, medical gas piping and electrical rough-ins continue to be installed into the walls and above the ceilings, along with the interior metal-stud framing.

Drywall hanging is slated for May.

Cires Electric is the latest local contractor to join the project, which has exceeded $16 million in local participation so far, O’Brien said. The next bid package for landscaping and site work will go out for bids this month.

The $235 million Springfield Regional Medical Center, a 254 private-bed acute care hospital, is slated to open in early 2012.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0347 or kmori@coxohio.com.

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