For over a year now, the giant silhouettes of cranes have hovered over the horizon of Chattanooga’s Glenwood neighborhood.
As the machines hoisted beam after steel beam into the sky, another silhouette gradually joined them: The skeleton of Memorial Health Care System’s massive hospital expansion.
“At one time we were the only site in the country that had three cranes of that size operating at the same time,” said Lisa McCluskey, the hospital’s vice president of marketing and communications.
On Tuesday, just one more steel piece will need to be lifted. The bright-red beam is coated with hundreds of signatures, good wishes and prayers from Memorial patients and employees. It will be affixed to the very top of the hospital’s new seven-story North Tower, “topping out” the structure and launching Memorial into the final leg of its $318 million expansion and renovation project.
By next July, the 300,000-square-foot North Tower, or “heart tower,” is expected to open with 96 private patient rooms and cardiac rehabilitation. It will also be home to the new chapel for the not-for-profit hospital, which is owned by Catholic Health Initiatives.