Our project teams at Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin are experts when it comes to disruption avoidance. As a part of the Central Sterile Processing project, Mortenson is managing the relocation of the Central Sterile Processing Department from the first floor to the lower level. The Central Sterile Processing Department is vital to hospital operations because it is responsible for sterilizing all tools used for surgery. 

The department move is part of the larger Integrated Procedural Platform project that is consolidating the operating rooms and interventional suites in the hospital. A major part of the Central Sterile portion of the project includes the addition of three elevator shafts that will run in the middle of the building from the lower level to the 3rd floor operating rooms. In order to excavate the elevator pits, we transported disassembled equipment 1200 feet through occupied corridors into the lower level and reassembled the three excavators. Over the course of two weeks, workers excavated and removed 130 cubic yards of soil and 10,000 square feet of concrete from the lower level out of the hospital. To ensure the least amount of disruption, teams worked during off-shift hours with laborers dedicated to flagging patient, doctor, visitor, and project team traffic.

As construction moves up each floor, teams will cut a 30 by 12-foot hole in the middle of each floor for the elevator shaft. The project is scheduled to be substantially completed in the summer of 2018.