Story

The Spectrum Health Heart Center is 10-story, world-class cardiac care facility.  While starting the electrical construction in the middle of winter,  ice was building up on the floor which made it physically and mechanically a tough project.  The Allied electricians weren’t hanging out on the frosty tenth floor for their health. That was the location of motor control centers, emergency power, chillers and air handling equipment, as well as a 30,000-pound unit substation that had to be craned, installed and wired. There was also work to be done at street level, running conduits through underground tunnel systems to tap off the huge hospital generators and set a transfer system to emergency generators in case of power loss.

Completed in a tight two-year schedule, the Heart Center houses Michigan’s largest open-heart surgery program and features medical and information technology including wireless patient monitoring and secure laptop access to electronic medical records. The Center boasts Cardio-Cath Labs, MRI Labs and Cardio Operating Rooms as well as a four-story Healing Garden. Training/conference rooms are equipped with room-surround digital presentation and video-conferencing capabilities. The electrical contract portion alone for this project was $12 million, making it the largest single-site assignment Allied Electric has completed. Located on a tight urban site adjoining the existing hospital, the Heart Center was built in a multi-phase construction sequence, and involved utility relocations and structural demolition. From ground to ten stories, it was a pretty intense project.