Memorial Hospital-East, Shiloh, Holland Construction Services (Joint Venture)

Spotlight on Southwestern Illinois Commercial Construction

Memorial Hospital-East, Shiloh, Holland Construction Services (Joint Venture)

By ALAN J. ORTBALS
    The steel skeleton of the new Memorial Hospital-East in Shiloh is up, exterior wall framing and sheathing is progressing and the brick façade work will begin soon. The construction project is a joint venture of Holland Construction Services of Swansea and Pepper Construction of Chicago.
    Dan Sternau is Holland’s project manager on the job. Pepper’s David Poynton is the lead project manager. Sternau handles the day to day construction operations, working with superintendents and contractors and keeping the project on track and on schedule.
    “We have a great team of guys who all have experience building similar projects,” Sternau said. “In a joint venture such as this, we all have a role. We sat down early on and identified the strengths and the experience of each individual, assigned roles and responsibilities and set up an organizational chart. We all work together as a team to make sure that we’re meeting those roles and responsibilities and that the overall project is successful.”
    They started moving earth in April 2013 and got the ok to start on footings and foundations in December 2013. Sternau said that the foundation work began in early January 2014 despite the extremely cold weather.
    “We put a lot of time and effort into making sure that we were following everything per code and per the specifications to do that work in that cold of a temperature,” Sternau said. “The subcontractor was very responsive and very knowledgeable about building practices in those cold weather conditions and it turned out great. We got all of our footings in on schedule and we haven’t missed a beat yet.”
    Due to soil conditions, engineers recommended rammed aggregate piers drilled 15 to 30 feet into the ground be used to support the five-story structure — 1,300 of them went in below the footings. Some 1,600 tons of steel are going into the building along with 7,400 cubic yards of concrete. Then, 75,000 square feet of brick, glazing cast stone and metal panels will make up the exterior.
    The 208,000-square-foot building should be substantially complete by the end of 2015. Memorial expects to open the doors for business in April 2016.