If you’ve been watching the progress on the Northwest Addition, you’ve noticed that a lot of concrete has been poured lately. As of this week, the third level (first floor) is done and we've started pouring concrete for the last level. Fortunately, rain hasn’t held up progress.
Now that the concrete on the lower and lobby levels has set, contractor CG Schmidt is preparing to join the Northwest Addition to the clinic building. Crews are making great efforts to ensure patients aren’t disturbed, so you won’t hear or see much change.

Nonetheless, there will be a lot happening over the next few weeks:

• The lower-level clinic floor is being excavated to install footings that will support the walkway, which will connect the buildings on all four levels.
• Crews will cut a large hole in the side of the clinic’s foundation for the walkway. Plywood walls, covered with drywall, will conceal the opening on the clinic side.
• Once construction begins, some patient accounts employees will move near the clinic’s new east entrance, ensuring continued easy access for patients.
• The optical and pharmacy departments will remain open throughout construction. New signage will assure easy access to these areas.

Practice Makes Perfect

Once concrete pours are complete, crews will install the building’s exterior from the bottom up. In the meantime, they’ll be assembling a two-story, 15-foot-wide exterior wall prototype according to the original plan next to CG Schmidt’s trailers. Figuring things out on a small scale will help make sure everything will work according to plan before the actual installation begins. When completed in early July, the prototype will be used as a reference by installers and Kahler Slater, the project’s architect.

So what’s going on the exterior? Here are a few numbers:

• 285,000 bricks that were manufactured in Center Point, Ind.
• Each brick is approximately eight inches long, so that’s 190,000 feet of brick. If you laid the bricks end to end, they would get you from Albany, Wis. to Freeport, Ill.
• 1,133 pieces of low-e glass covering 21,244 square feet. That’s just shy of half an acre of glass—approximately half the size of a football field.

To learn more, visit monroeclinic.org and click on the expansion button. Make sure to check out the construction webcam for a live view of what’s happening.