Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital is the first new hospital built
in Illinois in 25 years. Bolingbrook, a southwest suburb of Chicago
experienced rapid growth but was without a local hospital. Residents
had to travel a half-hour to the nearest major hospital. Adventist
Midwest Health System worked with Bolingbrook officials and Illinois
Department of Health to plan and build a brand new hospital.
The new 138-bed facility is a full service hospital. State of the
art operating and radiology suites will provide the residents of
Will County the best care available from modern medicine. The building
is bright and light filled with all the amenities. Patient rooms
include flat screen TVs, wireless internet, and room service in
addition to the best medical systems.
Safety and quality were the two buzzwords at the site. Block Electric
participated with the construction team to create a safe and quality
focused worksite. The Safety Committee worked to identify hazards
and eliminate them prior to work starting. The Quality Control Committee
assured the delivery of electrical and special systems without fault.
The project was completed with no serious injuries and no callbacks.
The US Department of Veteran Affairs contracted Waslh/DeMaria Construction
to consolidate and modernize the inpatient services at the Jesse
Brown VA Medical Center. Walsh/DeMaria chose Block Electric Company
as the electrical subcontractor. The electrical contract was let
first because of the complicated existing conditions at the site.
Three buildings needed new medium voltage services from the central
plant before demolition of the existing buildings could begin. The
problem was that the structures to be demolished lay between the
central plant and the buildings to be re-fed. Boring deep under
the existing structures solved the problem. It took extensive planning
to assure the new underground duct banks would not interfere with
the new hospital construction.
This project consists of a 200-bed inpatient/outpatient expansion
to the existing Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. The scope of work
includes a new 20-bed intensive care unit, an outpatient surgery
department on the ground level and 8 inpatient operating rooms on
the second level. There are 90 inpatient rooms on the 5th and 6th
floors and a dialysis unit with 20 supporting patient rooms on the
4th floor. The 7th floor is dedicated to the mental health and behavior
unit, which consists of 29 patient rooms, including isolation facilities.
Hospital support facilities are located on the first floor of the
new building, which include a surgical supply processing unit, emergency
medicine facilities, satellite pharmacy and a new chapel.
The Adventist Health System's major expansion at LaGrange Hospital
presented many challenges to the design and construction team. In
order to build the new hospital major infrastructure improvements
and relocations had to be accomplished. First a new central plant
had to be constructed. It was critical that the existing hospital
facility remain functioning without interruption. Block Electric
worked with the engineer Gresham, Smith and Partners and Walsh Construction
to assure a smooth transition from the old power systems to a modern
centralized power plant.
Next the new hospital was constructed. The new 5 story Patient
Care Center includes single bed patient rooms, state of the art
intensive care and cardiac care units. A new patient admitting center
greets patients with a 2-story water feature donated by the construction
team. Visitors enter the atrium lobby on a bridge over an indoor
garden. Also inside the 228,000 square foot building is a patient
education center, classrooms, auditorium, and gift shop. This was
one of the first hospital facilities to offer wireless internet
access.
Finally, the existing buildings received an electrical infrastructure
upgrade. New Life Safety, Critical, and Emergency systems were installed
to upgrade the existing facility to the latest safety codes.
Excerpts from an article by Ted Slowik of the Suburban Chicago News.com Will County's largest building is rapidly taking shape near Illinois 53 and Laraway Road. Dollar Tree Stores will have its 1.2 million-square-foot Joliet Regional Distribution Center under roof by winter. By June, the company hopes to begin shipping merchandise from the facility, which is expected to serve up to 600 retail stores in the Midwest by 2005.
Soon, Shorewood-based Block Electric Co. will move in and begin installing 208 miles of electrical wire through 38 miles of metal conduit. The building's 4,300 light fixtures will include 3.18 miles of fluorescent lighting.
Two 4,000-amp services will power the fully automated distribution center, where up to 50 truckloads of merchandise will arrive each day. Dollar Tree imports about half its merchandise into the Pacific Northwest, where items headed for the Midwest will be shipped by rail to the intermodal hub in Elwood.
Once merchandise is unloaded at one of the 150 docks at the Joliet
Regional Distribution Center, pallets will be loaded onto conveyors
and tagged with bar codes. Machines will sort the merchandise, storing
some in inventory on racks but shipping most items immediately out
to stores.
The new $45 million South Wing of the John G. Shedd Aquarium is home to the immense Wild Reef exhibit. The underground exhibit includes a new 27,000 square foot wing, which houses a coral reef and shark tank.
Block Electric's construction team faced many challenges in constructing the underground aquarium. Coordination with the concrete and exhibit contractors was key to the success of the project.
The critical parts of the installation offered only one opportunity for us perform. Everything had to be routed around the 400,000-gallon shark habitat that occupies the featured center portion of the exhibit.
The Shedd's South Wing has every aspect imaginable in an electrical construction project; industrial, commercial, institutional, and even healthcare.
The Wild Reef exhibit's 26 interconnected habitats house over 500 species of reef fish in more than 750,000 gallons of water.
Heating, cooling, and pumping systems for the 26 tanks
Explosion proof rooms for the specialty chemicals
Corrosion resistant materials
Theatrical lighting
Lighting controls and dimming systems
Pool grounding at all the tanks
Computerized interactive displays and exhibits
Life safety systems
Fire alarm
Emergency power systems
Exit and emergency lighting
Extensive site lighting system
Harrah's
Joliet Casino
Joliet, IL
Chicagoland's first Las Vegas style casino is at Harrah's Joliet Casino & Hotel. Before Harrah's remodeled, all casinos in Illinois were riverboat based. Harrah's replaced their two existing riverboats with a new 40,000 square foot floating casino floor. The gambling was never interrupted during construction.
This was one of the most challenging projects one could imagine. All the support areas are land based. The bars, lounges, money cages, bank, security, kitchen, VIP lounge, and Porte Cochere were built in a horseshoe around the existing riverboats. This was constructed on the riverfront in Joliet between the existing Harrah's pavilion and the new parking garage.
The casino was built on two barges several miles down the river in Cook County. This meant that two different local unions had to be utilized; IBEW Local 176 in Joliet and IBEW Local 134 in Cook County. The barges were separated and individually floated down the river. The two casino barges were then rejoined at their permanent dock in Joliet. Each half of the casino replaced one riverboat. Our crews worked around the clock to assure the gambling never stopped. All this was accomplished in a tough twelve-month schedule.
Letter from Clancey &
Theys Construction Company
As the Grand Opening of the Dollar Tree Distribution Center nears, I wanted to take this opportunity to express my appreciation of your firm's contribution to the success of this project. I don't have to tell you the importance of delivering a quality product ahead of schedule to a repeat client.
Since Clancey & Theys was an "out-of-town" general contractor for this project, we placed an even greater amount of trust in our subcontractors' performance than we normally would. From the very beginning, from the bid process on, we felt that Block Electric could be counted on to be fair and to perform at all the levels required for a large fast-track project.
In particular, I wanted to let you know that your management team of Doug Henline and Chris McCormick were absolutely indispensable to both your success and our success. Doug was always available to me, attended all of our weekly progress meetings, and promptly responded to changes as they arose. Chris was diligent and persevering, and more than anything else, he planned ahead. Because of his planning, we were able to find and solve a large number of issues before they became delays and re-work.
Our Project Superintendent, Mark Bowden, who has built five Dollar Tree Distribution Centers, calls Block Electric "the best ever" of all the electrical subcontractors he has worked with. Again, thank you for a job well done.
Bruce Miller
Project Manager
Clancey & Theys Construction Co.
Thank you to the General Foreman Chris McCormick, and foremen-Larry McCormick, Fred Orlovich, Joe Parthun, Bob Smith, and the crew.
