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The floors for the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular center are starting to take shape this month—you can even see where bathrooms will be on the seventh floor.
Crews continue to install the exterior wall and drill holes for plumbing and other infrastructure on the upper floors, and workers are installing the pipes to bring plumbing and medical gasses into the building’s 16 operating rooms on the lower levels. “There’s an awful lot of work left, but we’re starting to see some of the ORs and inpatient rooms take shape,” Jonathan Katz, senior project coordinator for BWH, said. The concrete for all the floors on each level had been poured as of last week.
Iron workers and glazers from Karas & Karas Glass Co. are installing metal and glass curtain wall panels on floors six through 10, all of which will house inpatient rooms. This intricate process involves installing different kinds of panels with great precision as a group of workers lowers the 5-foot by 13-foot panels from one floor up, and one worker positions the panel in its exact space and bolts it in place.
It takes one seven-man crew six or seven days to complete one floor, and last week, Karas & Karas added a second crew. “Even after the panels are in place, there is a lot of work remaining to button up the outside wall,” Katz said.
The exterior wall for the fourth and fifth floors includes mostly louvers and steel, and floors one to three will have a mixture of metal panels and glass windows. Installation of the exterior walls and glass on the lower floors and east lobby will continue through February.
The lower levels, including the imaging suites on lower level 2 and the operating rooms on lower level 1, have metal frames and much wiring and plumbing infrastructure in place. “Some of us from the OR did a walk through last week, and you can really get a feel for how the space will look,” said Barbara DiTullio, BSN, MA, RN, assistant nurse manager in the OR. “It’s exciting to see it coming together.”
During the Feb. 17 weekend, crews are currently scheduled to begin assembling the steel frame for the Nesson Pike extension bridge over Francis Street to connect the Shapiro Center and the Tower. Work will continue that week on the one-story, 14-foot wide bridge.
By the end of February, the last of the air handling units will have been hoisted to the penthouse and put in place and the tower crane will be disassembled and taken away.