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MiddletownJournal.com

Work looming for Middletown's new hospital

Middletown's biggest construction project in decades has some big numbers attached to it.

And not just the obvious ones.

One number has been well aired already: Building the replacement Middletown Regional Hospital northeast of Ohio 122 and Union Road will cost about $197 million. The hospital proper with nearby parking lots will be sited on about 70 acres.

But for a project this size, there are other numbers at which to marvel.

For example:

• About 34,000 cubic yards of dirt came out of the area that will serve for just one quarter of the new hospital's basement, said Wendy Parks, a hospital spokeswoman.

• On an "average" day at the construction site, 64 construction workers are on the job, Parks said.

• One can find some 28 pieces of heavy equipment at the site at any time, including five Volvo trucks, five bulldozers, four track hoes, three bobcats, three vibratory roller compactors, two compactors, two blades, one all-terrain forklift vehicle and one crawler crane — among other equipment.

In all, the 750,000-square-foot hospital is the focus of plenty of construction energy.

Dan Smith, president of Middletown's SK Construction, which is performing site work for the hospital, said his company is moving 380,000 cubic yards of dirt for the project and laying about seven miles of storm, sanitary and water lines.

For upcoming work on new hospital parking lots, the company will put down 114,000 square yards of pavement. And the firm also has 27,000 feet of curb and gutter work ahead of it at the hospital site.

"I think that's probably the biggest project in town since Armco did what they called 'Project 600,'" Smith said. Project 600 expanded Middletown Works, today operated by AK Steel Corp.

John McKinney, facilities director for Middletown Regional Health System, which owns the hospital, has no doubt this is Middletown's biggest construction job in decades.

"It is immense," McKinney said. "It really gives you a dwarfed feeling."

David Duritsch, Middletown government's environmental services director and acting engineering director, sees the project even wider in scope. As far as Duritsch is concerned, the hospital work has implications stretching from Cincinnati-Dayton Road on the Butler/Warren counties border east to the Middletown municipal border in Hunter.

Key facets of that work include widening Union from two to five lanes north and south of its intersection with Ohio 122, including the bridge, as well as the I-75/Ohio 122 interchange redesign. Physical work on the interchange will start in 2009. Work on Union will start early next year, although some property acquisition is happening now.

"When you start looking at the hospital construction and all the other infrastructure at the (city's East End) ... it is the largest project I've ever been involved in," said Duritsch, who has worked for city government since he was a college student in 1988.

tgnau@coxohio.com

(513) 705-2833