(Onley, VA) –Two o'clock in the morning is not when construction workers are usually on the job, but for the teams working on the new Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital campus in Onley, it was the beginning of an exciting day's work.
The first section of the concrete slab that will provide the base for the new hospital was begun the morning of July 7th at 2:00 a.m. The slab for the 70,000 square foot footprint of the hospital building will be poured in several sections, followed by the slab for the Riverside Shore Cancer Center. The last slab to be placed will be for the medical office building.
"Placing the concrete this morning was a group effort that was overseen by Turner Construction. Branscome Inc. furnished the concrete, Brundage Bone and Blanchet Concrete Pumping provided the pumping equipment to get the concrete mixture from the trucks to the slab, and Century Concrete provided the manpower," said Jeffrey Brooks, Project Manager for construction on the Riverside campus in Onley. "We started at 2:00 a.m. so that the concrete had a chance to begin curing before the sun came up. Once the sun comes up, the top layer of concrete cures quickly before the bottom layers do, and we risk cracking later on."
By the time most people were headed to work, the first section of the slab –the northwest quadrant of the hospital building - had been completely poured and was hard enough for workers to begin finishing using riding trowels.
"In preparation for pouring the slab, piping and conduits for plumbing and electric power were installed in the past few weeks and are now under the concrete that was poured this morning," said Brooks. "The parking lots are also beginning to take shape. We expect a delivery of steel by the end of the month. In August vertical construction will start on the hospital building –it will be exciting to see it rise up out of the ground."
Community members who are interested can watch construction progress on the www.riversideonline.com/shore website. A webcam takes a photo every fifteen minutes and has a time lapse feature that makes a short video out of the photos.
John Peterman, Administrator for Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital, stated, "Riverside Shore Memorial's Board, medical staff and team members are especially excited to begin this structural phase of construction. The concrete slab will support our building - and therefore our patient care - for the next few decades; it really is the foundation for our ability to deliver on our mission to care for others as we would care for those we love."