FORT WAYNE – Local electricians, plumbers, architects and landscapers are hoping the health care industry’s hearty financial condition is contagious.
So far, the prognosis is good.
At the depth of the Great Recession, when all other business investment had dried up, health care systems were still dreaming about shimmering new operating rooms and radiology departments.
Now, contractors are up to their hard hats in work on Parkview Regional Medical Center and Parkview Whitley. Other pending area projects include Cameron Memorial Community Hospital, Kosciusko Community Hospital, Wabash County Hospital and Lutheran Hospital’s $42 million fifth-floor addition.
The projects have put hundreds to work at a time when jobs have been all-but-impossible to find for some people. Sheryl Wiser, safety manager for Fox Contractors, leads a safety orientation for workers new to the Parkview Regional Medical Center site. It’s not uncommon for someone to say he’s happy to be working for the first time in four, six or even nine months, she said.
Various construction-related firms have been able to hold their workforces steady, in many cases, rather than lay off workers. Some have even grown.
Mike Packnett, president and CEO of Parkview Health, described health care as a key economic development driver that provides stability to the community.
“We currently have over 500 workers on-site each day. That number will increase to around 800 at the peak of construction later this year and into 2011,” he said in a statement.
The contractors involved – and the companies picking up jobs those firms would have otherwise won – definitely agree. The Journal Gazette talked to some contractors benefiting from the health care-related work.
Morrison, Kattman & Menze
Fort Wayne-based architects Morrison, Kattman & Menze recently hired some interns. Big deal, right? Well, the firm couldn’t afford to do it for the past two or three years, so those interns signify stability and growth.
“Hospitals and the health care arena have been good to us,” said partner Ron Menze, whose firm earned 83 percent of its revenue last year from health care-related work.
Menze has been involved with 27 hospital projects in the past 15 years, including Cameron Memorial Community Hospital and Wabash Community Hospital. The firm, which employs about 20, frequently participates in conferences where partners can potentially woo clients.
Reputation, experience, networking and salesmanship help attract new projects, he said. Taking continuing-education courses and reading hospital code books and manuals prepare the firm to handle rigorous health care-related projects.
Menze’s challenge is to design buildings that can meet current needs and adapt to future technology and updated processes.
Every job, he said, has a different feel. Some are focused on the clinical side of delivering care, while some are centered on preserving patients’ dignity.
The firm’s mantra is: “We know hospitals, but you know your hospital.”
Weigand Construction
The Fort Wayne-based general contractor partnered with Chicago-based Pepper Construction Group’s Indiana operation to win about $365 million of the Parkview Regional contract. The firm hires and pays the project’s subcontractors.
Weigand tackles commercial, industrial and institutional projects across the country. The firm employs about 40 in the office and 100 to 300 in the field.
At the Parkview site, the company has 10 project management-related staff and 12 field staff, said Aaron Lybarger, senior project manager.
Weigand Construction also won some of the subcontracts, which have put 20 to 30 tradesmen at the site. That will grow to 80 to 100 as work progresses.
“If we didn’t have this job, we would not have the 100 tradesmen working somewhere else,” he said.
Although Lybarger doesn’t expect hospital construction projects to always be as plentiful as they are now, he thinks health care-related maintenance and remodeling work could keep Weigand busy for years.
Fox Contractors
The Fort Wayne-based underground utility and excavation company prepared the Parkview Regional site for all the other work crews.
Construction projects need good, solid dirt, said Wiser, the safety manager. Fox Contractors crews remove peat and replace it when necessary.
The firm, which also has an office in Indianapolis, employs about 250 to 300 at peak times of the year and 125 during slower times. Last summer, at the height of the Parkview work, the company had 100 to 110 workers on-site. Probably three-fourths of them wouldn’t have been hired if not for the medical center job.
Most of the company’s work is now done there, but about 20 employees remain to dig ponds for the campus and work on erosion control after heavy rains.
The firm’s contract for Parkview is about $13 million. That’s one-third the company’s normal annual revenue of $40 million.
Shambaugh & Son
The Fort Wayne-based specialty company won the contract to install Parkview Regional’s electrical, mechanical, plumbing, temperature control and fire protection systems.
The complex and extensive systems typically account for 35 percent to 40 percent of construction costs, CEO Mark Shambaugh said. The project has been valued at $536 million.
In the past 10 years, Shambaugh & Son has done $800 million of health care-related work. The Parkview Regional project accounts for about 20 percent of the firm’s revenue this year and about 10 percent next, the chief executive said.
The 84-year-old company employs about 350 in the office and 1,000 to 1,500 tradesmen and field staff across the country. Recent contracts include hospitals in West Lafayette and Mishawaka.
Hospital projects are challenging because electrical and other systems must have backups that keep the lights on and machines humming even during thunderstorms. A hotel, for example, wouldn’t invest in parallel power systems, said Gary Hegger, senior vice president of construction.
Also, cleanliness is a top concern. Shambaugh’s workers pay special attention to make sure dust from one area still under construction doesn’t filter through the ventilation system to areas with patients and staff during renovation work, Hegger said.
Shambaugh & Son has about 160 workers at the Parkview site. Hegger expects that number to peak at 400 this year. Most of them would not be working for the company if not for the Parkview project, he said.
“This project has been a godsend to the local labor force,” he said.
Brooks Construction
The outdoor parking lots at Parkview Regional are Fort Wayne-based Brooks Construction’s responsibility. Drivers might be familiar with the company’s work on the Illinois and Aboite Center roads projects.
The 100-year-old business does asphalt paving and curb work and lays stone under the asphalt. Although the company has done significant commercial work, the medical center project is still big enough to have an effect.
“It is the largest – to our knowledge – non-governmental construction project in northeast Indiana,” President Andy Brooks said. “It’s the 800-pound gorilla right now.”
The company assigns up to five crews – or about 40 workers – to the Parkview site at one time. The paving preparation work started in 2009 and will last through most of 2011, Brooks said. He declined to reveal the contract’s value.
“It’s an unbelievable win for this community; the amount of money they’re pumping in will definitely be felt” in the region, he said.
LandPlan Group
Fort Wayne-based LandPlan Group, a landscape architecture firm, beat Dallas- and Indianapolis-based firms for the Parkview contract.
Kevin McCrory, president and co-owner, said work on the project started about two years ago and is mostly finished. The contract is the largest in the firm’s 20-year history. For a period from 2008 to 2009, the Parkview Regional work was responsible for about 75 percent of LandPlan’s revenue.
Landscape architects design sidewalks, outdoor plazas, building entrances, outdoor dining areas, lighting, special paving and underground irrigation systems. They will choose benches, bike racks and outdoor furniture for the Parkview Regional campus. Trees, lawn, flowers and bushes are the frosting on the landscape cake.
Hospitals are different from other design projects for several reasons, he said. They are open 24 hours and need bright, clear lighting even in the middle of the night. They need traffic flow and parking lots with straightforward designs.
McCrory’s efforts to create a calming experience include choosing softer, seasonal colors for plants and flowers and creating shady sidewalks by planting leafy trees.
“People are always a little nervous when they go to the hospital,” he said.The firm designed and will supervise construction work worth $8 million to $9 million.
LandPlan employs five, including McCrory. The firm had to let one employee go in January, and the cut would have been deeper without the Parkview contract, which McCrory called “important to the survival of our firm over the past year, to be frank.”
Harlow Enterprises
The Fort Wayne-based landscape contractor is waiting until next year to perform most of its Parkview Regional work.
That’s when workers will place sidewalk pavers, erect retaining walls, spread soil and place plants. Equipment allows them to plant trees as tall as 30 feet with trunks 6 inches across.
“We take what they’ve designed on paper, and we install it,” said Jill Kaluza, project manager. “It gets pretty detailed.”
Founded in 1988, Harlow Enterprises employs 50 at peak times and 15 in the off season.
Kaluza declined to share the percentage of the firm’s business that Parkview Regional is responsible for, but she said the project’s financial effects stretch beyond that dollar amount, anyway.
Contractors on-site are building relationships with each other, and she hopes those connections will lead to future jobs.
