They demand attention, these marvels of machinery.
Below, a thousand workers might weld steel, lay bricks and juggle a thousand other jobs, but the eye strays up to the cranes.
Specifically, these are tower cranes, inverted L-shaped behemoths that are helping to build Parkview Regional Medical Center and add a fifth floor to Lutheran Hospital.
They’ve become part of the landscape for anyone who drives the 15 miles along Interstate 69 between the hospitals. Three cranes are spreading the work at Parkview, while Lutheran is making do with one.
They aren’t the largest tower cranes in the world, but they are some of the biggest the region has seen in recent years. Each is trucked to the construction site in sections on a dozen or so semis. It takes another crane to put them together in a days-long process.
The cranes shoot straight up without guy wires to secure them. Bolted in concrete – 5 feet deep at Parkview, with nine pilings driven 65 feet or more – they aren’t going anywhere.
The crane at Lutheran sprouts from an existing building. A stairwell was removed, a hole dug in the basement and concrete poured to secure the crane. Rising out of that foundation, the crane is attached to points in the building, said project manager Michael Bluhm of Weigand Construction.
On top of the tower, or mast, is the slewing unit, which allows the crane to rotate. The long horizontal arm that carries the load is called the jib. On the longer end, a trolley moves the load nearer or farther from the tower. On the shorter end, a series of counterweights, each weighing tons, balances the crane.
Crane operators work solo in cabs atop the towers during 10- to 12-hour days. There’s no elevator. They climb to the top – as high as 20 stories – on metal ladders.
On the Parkview construction site, a husband-wife team – Kenny and Nancy Bryan – operate separate cranes.
Around the work site, demands on crane time are unending. Setting priorities is left to Bluhm at Lutheran and Kelly Macken, project superintendent for the Parkview construction, a joint venture of Weigand/Pepper Construction. Macken keeps a scheduling board in his office that lists times and subcontractors needing use of the massive cranes.
“I pay these operators to stay up in that cab through their lunch,” Macken said. “So, if we have an open window of 15 minutes or 20 minutes, and a guy or a contractor needs to get some material to one point or another, we’ll fit it in.”
They lift baskets of tools and construction materials, rebar and concrete and structural steel. Directing them by radio are people on the ground certified in rigging who inspect, store and hook up materials, making sure loads are balanced.
A computer tells an operator the hook elevation, load weight and positioning information. A switch will trigger a shutdown if the load exceeds safety limits. Weather radar and lightning detectors also are onboard.
Chris Cozzolino, 36, a certified operator for 11 years, controls the Lutheran crane. Heights to him are nothing.
“Before this, I used to build cell towers,” he said. “This is kind of close to the ground, actually.”
He has an air conditioner and refrigerator. As for bathroom facilities, Cozzolino says only, “Bottles.” For more extended breaks, he climbs down to the porta-potty.
“I love it,” Cozzolino said of his job. “You get to play with a big Tonka toy each day.”
