Children's Hospital Construction Activities This Week

Here are the construction related activities happening this week on the hospital construction site:

Building Exterior Cladding
Crews are onsite completing installation of the major components of the exterior of the building. This includes metal window frames and glass, ribbed metal panels, stone shingles, colored glass fins and frosted glass awnings. The mock-up located on the construction site is being removed and will soon disappear from the northwest side of the construction site.

Building Interior Work
Crews are onsite installing the metal stud-framed walls and gypsum wallboard that make up most of the interior partitions. They are also running duct work for the air handling units which have been installed, and running conduit for all the power and lighting systems. Crews are also installing the fire sprinklers on all the floors. Besides these basic systems, we have a pneumatic tube system, medical gas systems, and many low voltage wiring systems for all the specialty equipment.

Roofing Activities
Crews are onsite completing installation of the roofing. This includes two “green” roofs which have helped us earn credits towards our LEED goal of Gold. (A green roof is a roof of a building that is partially, or completely, covered with vegetation.) Roofing activities will continue into June.

Vibratory Rolling
There will be some necessary compacting activities for site work that involves regrading and adding a retaining wall running north/south on the site, as well as a new elevator between the parking lot and the Sinegal entrance. This compacting will cause vibrations in the surrounding area. The work will be ongoing with the greatest impact occurring in the next two to three weeks. The site preparation will make way for the landscaping, parking lot, and circulation that will be installed on site over the coming months.

Seattle Public Utilities Work
SPU will complete on 40^th Avenue NE this week. Site construction fencing along 40^th will be removed to accommodate this work. Temporary fencing will be installed at this location during off work hours. In the coming months, we will replace the eastern sidewalk damaged sections of the street.

Installation of New Gas Line
PSE has completed the new gas line installation along 40^th Avenue NE. Crews have temporarily patched the removedconcrete paving panels with asphalt and will return on June 25^th to re-install the concrete panels. This concrete paving activity will impact parking and traffic.

For more information check out the Construction Blog. For questions call 206-987-6197.

Lights Installed On Crane and Buiding Structure On Hospital Construction Site

Last week lights were installed on the tower crane on the Children's Hospital construction site. The lights will be on Monday through Friday from 7am-6pm.

Lights were also installed inside the building structure and will be on during the same hours as the crane.

The Construction Blog says that "lights help provide safe access for construction workers and improve safety for materials handling during the darker winter months."

(photo courtesy of Hospital)

244 Foot Crane Now On Hospital Construction Site and Why There Is Such A Huge Pile Of Dirt On The North End

You may have noticed that there is now a very very tall crane on the Children's Hospital Construction site, formerly Laurelon Terrace Condominiums.

The crane, which stands some 244 feet tall,  was installed in the last two days.  The Hospital Construction Blog says the crane will be used by the construction team over the next year to move heavy materials.

The Blog says "The tower crane will be higher than the hospital building itself. In fact, the bottom of the crane’s boom is 40 feet higher than the top of the mechanical penthouse.  This is because clearance is needed between the top of the building and the crane’s hook and cable.

"The crane will stretch along the construction site but will not swing over adjacent private property. It will be active during construction hours which generally run from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m."

A few notable facts about the crane mentioned on the Blog:
• It is a model known for its quality and durability
• It can lift up to 40,000 pounds
• It has a 147 horse-power, four speed motor
• It is all electric: it has no motor noise and is more environmentally friendly than other cranes

You may have also noticed an enormous pile of dirt, covered with a white tarp, on the north end of the construction site, that keeps getting bigger and bigger. See the picture below.

Tim McKey, Project Superintendent with Sellen Construction, told us that early in the design phase of the project a concern was raised by the hospital about ways to reduce the construction impact on the surrounding neighborhood, including reducing the amount of trucks coming and going to and from the site.

Thus, Tim said that "a decision was made to retain as much of the foundation excavation material as possible on site and incorporate it into the design, rather than trucking it off. The dirt is being stockpiled and covered for now, and in the summer of 2012 will be used to contour the site around the new building and create surface parking lots, rain gardens and planting areas."

For questions about the construction, call 206-987-6197 or email construction@seattlechildrens.org.