Andersen Construction Company, Inc.

A work of love┬áAndersen Construction is serving as general contractor on an addition to the Shriners Hospital in Portland, Oregon. Keith Regan learns how the challenges on the ground have been easily surmounted and how the life-changing work the hospital does is an inspiration to everyone involved.  To many people, Shriners International is best known as being a fraternity of Freemasons known for embracing good times and good-natured antics at their conventions.  But to thousands of children who have suffered from severe injuries or diseases that leave them unable to walk, the Shriners represent a chance at a more active life. Shriners International supports Shriners Hospitals for Children, a system of 22 healthcare facilities around the world dedicated exclusively to providing specialty pediatric care to crippled children at no cost to patients or their families. Since 1922, Shriners Hospitals have improved the lives of more than 865,000 children, providing prosthetic limbs and extensive orthopedic surgery and rehabilitation services.One of those hospitals, Portland Shriners Hospital in Portland, Oregon, dates to 1923 (the current building was built in 1982) and has been unable to keep up with the demand for inpatient services and surgeries. To boost its ability to treat patientsÔÇöit has a waiting list of some 300 childrenÔÇöwhile also updating the current facility, Shriners is funding a $74 million addition. Andersen Construction, a 58-year-old construction firm specializing in commercial, industrial, and institutional and healthcare work, is serving as general contractor and construction manager on the project, having been brought on board during the final design development stage. Ground was broken on the project in the fall of 2008, the steel structure was topped off in May 2009, and the project is scheduled for completion early in 2010. Andersen began operating in 1950, and founder Andy Andersen is credited with introducing concrete tilt-up construction to the Pacific Northwest region, an approach that dramatically reduced construction time on major commercial buildings. Andersen senior project manager Brad Nile says that many of the specific construction challenges on the project have had to do with working on a confined and limited site footprint. The addition is rising around and over an existing multilevel parking structure on the campus. To enable the hospital to rise above it, a concrete column and sheer wall structure was built that rises as much as 70 feet at its highest point. Steel trusses some 90 feet long and 16 feet deep create floor spaces, and steel framing rises around those trusses, which then give way to a conventional steel structure. The siteÔÇÖs location on the campus of and along a main access to Oregon Health Sciences University also created some logistics challenges, with a small piece of public right-of-way used for a tower crane and staging of materials. ÔÇ£There was not a lot of opportunity for shutting down roads so we can do work, so we had to make a plan that caused as little disruption as possible,ÔÇØ Nile says. An extensive construction management plan was drafted that various parties all signed onto and helped craft, and non-percussive techniques were used to install drilled shafts and rock anchors, which helped reduce the sound and vibration impacts on the active hospitals surrounding the site. Although the project is not seeking LEED certification, Nile says it has been designed by local architects and engineers who are well versed in green building concepts. ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs a way of life in this part of the country. It wouldnÔÇÖt take much for the building to get a LEED plaque, but the Shriners work very hard to spend their money responsibly and felt that theyÔÇÖd rather use their resources on other aspects of the project or on providing healthcare services.ÔÇØ Once the three-story, 73,000-square-foot additionÔÇöwhich will create 29 new patient rooms as well as a new surgery centerÔÇöis completed, 62,000 square feet of existing hospital space will be updated and renovated as well, providing additional space for the busy outpatient care area of the hospital, which handles thousands of visits annually from patients who live between California and Alaska. The two facilities will be connected on multiple levels and fully integrated once the work is completed. Nile, who has been with Andersen since 1994, has been working on healthcare projects for several years after spending a decade helping to construct millions of square feet of space in the high-technology sector. Andersen has experience in both fields as well as multifamily construction and higher education projects. Many of the same requirements for systems control and air cleanliness apply in both high-tech and healthcare, Nile notes, though it can be far more rewarding for those on the job to know their care and attention to detail will translate into better care for patients in the future. ÔÇ£When you know the hard work youÔÇÖre doing is going to directly benefit people in the form of the care they receive rather than protecting silicon chips, it makes a difference.ÔÇØJust how unique the opportunity to work on the Shriners Hospital project is and how grateful workers on the job are has been driven home during the steel construction phase of the project. Taking a page from a similar project in Boston, steelworkers have taken to getting lists of patients from the existing hospital and painting those names along with inspirational messages onto the steel beams, which the children are able to see from an activity room at the facility. Others are wearing patient names on their safety vests and hard hats. ÔÇ£This is one of those sites where you canÔÇÖt help but be moved by the patients and families that show up here for care,ÔÇØ says Nile. ÔÇ£They are going through times of hardship, and some of them have had to endure it for a long time. Considering the economy, weÔÇÖre grateful as contractors and subcontractors to be tackling such a unique project, but the fact that itÔÇÖs going to help children who are in great need makes us all very thankful to be involved and combines to make it a very rewarding project.ÔÇØ ÔÇô Editorial research by Greg Petzold