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McCormick Place Becoming a COVID-19 Hospital, Chicago Veterans Home Fast-Tracked to Help | Columbus Ohio Dump Trucks

Special Report

As number of cases increases in Illinois, state-owned resources are being tapped for coronavirus response

Chicago Veterans Home
The Chicago Veterans Home went from being due this summer to needing to be completed in 21-days to make its 200-beds available to the state.
Photo courtesy of IHC Construction

As COVID-19 cases in Illinois increased to more than 5,000 with 73 deaths, state officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that Chicago's McCormick Place, the largest convention center in North America, would be converted to a hospital to deal with the ongoing coronavirus threat. Another project, the Chicago Veterans Home, has been fast-tracked from its original summer completion date.

[For ENR’s latest coverage of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, click here]

Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced the Chicago convention center will have 500 beds available by April 5. The planned emergency hospital, which is being called an alternate care facility, will eventually be able to hold 3,000 beds for patients, most of whom display mild symptoms and would not require intensive care.

Another group of 500 beds is planned to be available April 12, with 1,250 more by April 20. The final 750 beds are being planned for McCormick Place's Hall B as acute care beds for patients exhibiting more severe symptoms and those will be in place by the end of April, Pritzker said.

“Based on best practices around the world on how to manage positive cases and contain this virus, McCormick will be dedicated mostly to non-acute COVID-19 patients, people who could benefit from the care of medical professionals but are not likely to need a formal ICU,” Pritzker said at his daily news briefing.

Lt. General Todd T. Semonite, chief of engineers and commanding general of the USACE, at a Pentagon press conference March 28, said the ability of Hall B to perform like a hospital was necessary for those 750 acute care beds.

“The ability to do negative pressure in a hotel room is pretty easy," Semonite said. "But when you go into a giant voluminous room like a convention center, to try and bring the pressure down, we didn't think it was attainable, [but] McCormick Place’s infrastructure—with water, electricity and sewage service easily accessible—makes it possible to set up a medical facility there."

Pritzker didn't say which government agency will take charge of the site or how it will be staffed, though the state has asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for assistance and volunteers are being sought on McCormick Place's website. The convention center is owned by The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, a state agency created by the Illinois General Assembly and commonly known as "McPier" because the two assets it owns are McCormick Place and nearby Navy Pier.

Another state-owned building, the $71-million Chicago Veterans Home, had been delayed since construction began in 2012 because of a faulty foundation design by the original structural engineer and because of shutdowns over disagreements between former Gov. Bruce Rauner [R] and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan [D, southwest Chicago]. It was planned to finally be completed by contractor IHC Construction this summer. That all changed when IHC was told to stop columbus oh dump truck work on Thursday, March 19, but then the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs changed its mind and said to, rather, speed construction of the two-tower, 200-bed facility.

“None of our other projects had been shut down, but that lasted about 12 hours,” says Joe Saftig, IHC Construction’s project manager. “The word on Friday [March 20] was you have 21 days to complete it on an accelerated schedule, and for the only purpose of their thinking was that in two weeks, the state is going to need any and all space they can find.”

IHC put on a second shift and is now working Sunday to Monday to get the 200-bed home done as quickly as possible. IHC brought in a cleaning crew that spends about three hours cleaning and disinfecting the space with fogging and misting sprays and other CDC-approved protocols between shifts and at the end of the day. Other measures include spreading out the columbus oh dump truck work by sending in only two tradesmen per space used in the H-shaped, five-story building.

IHC I had 75 tradesmen here working on the project, either IHC personnel or subcontractors before March 20 and now it's up to about 135 to accelerate the schedule.

"We've got 15 days, 10 hours, seven minutes, and 31 seconds to go [as of press time]. I've got a countdown clock in my office," Saftig says.