Trinity Health construction focuses on energy plant
Work powers up to finish energy plant
Jill Schramm/MDN Dave Kohlman, Trinity vice president of facilities, showcases the three generators installed in the Central Energy Plant in the Trinity facility under construction in southwest Minot. Trinity provided a media tour of the plant Monday.
Jill Schramm/MDN Steel framing is among the work being done on the interior of Trinity’s future new hospital.
Jill Schramm/MDN Blocks of concrete await use for hospital wall framing in the Trinity project in southwest Minot.
Jill Schramm/MDN Dave Kohlman, Trinity vice president of facilities, showcases the three generators installed in the Central Energy Plant in the Trinity facility under construction in southwest Minot. Trinity provided a media tour of the plant Monday.
Jill Schramm/MDN Steel framing is among the work being done on the interior of Trinity’s future new hospital.
Jill Schramm/MDN Blocks of concrete await use for hospital wall framing in the Trinity project in southwest Minot.
Trending
An energy plant that will heat, cool and power a future hospital and medical office complex is a focus of current construction at the Trinity Health site in southwest Minot.
A variety of work has been occurring at the construction site since Trinity held its groundbreaking ceremony in September 2018. Project completion isn't expected until the end of 2023, but construction manager JE Dunn is aiming to finish the project's Central Energy Plant by May. The plant will provide the lights, heating, cooling, water and other infrastructure needs of the complex.
Dave Kohlman, Trinity vice president of facilities, said completion of the Central Energy Plant is important to ensure heating and cooling features are in place by summer to be able to do finishing work that requires conditioned air. Currently, there are eight outside heating units on the first four floors to keep the work environment comfortable.
The plant under construction includes three emergency generators with room for a fourth. A 15,000-gallon exterior, underground tank fuels the generators.
Tested monthly, the generators synchronize with the utility power so switching between the utility and generator is so seamless the lights won't even blink, Kohlman said.
In addition to the ongoing mechanical and electrical work, the concrete floors are fully poured and block walls are getting started, said Aaron Guiter, JE Dunn construction project manager. Framing for interior walls is occurring on levels one and two and will be continuing through level six this winter, he said.
Over the next few weeks, other infrastructure, such as an escalator and elevators, will be put into place, said Randy Schwan, Trinity vice president of mission integration.
"The progress has been remarkable, especially in the last six months," Schwan said. "The building is taking shape. Some of the actual, final exterior skins are on some pieces of the building, so you can see they're really coming a long way in a short amount of time. The weather has a lot to do with that. The crew here and the choreography of the contractor with all the subcontractors has a great deal to do with that. We just have an excellent team here that is making wonderful progress. We're very, very pleased with where we're at today."
"The weather has definitely helped us," Guiter said. "We've been very fortunate this fall and this early winter to get the building completely enclosed, insulated. It's much expedited the interior work."
The project typically employs between 250 and 300 workers at any given time, Guitar said. Over the next few months employment is expected to increase to 500 to 600 a day.
Kohlman said many of those employees are local. In November when there were 250 workers on site, the breakdown indicated 175 were North Dakotans, and of those, 90 were Minot residents.
"JE Dunn has done a great job of engaging all of our local folks," Kohlman said, specifically listing a few Minot electrical firms that have been subcontracted.
"They could be doing better," said Randy Bartsch, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 714 in Minot and president of Minot Building & Trades Council. "That could be 100% of electricians from Minot right now."
Instead, between 30 and 40 electrical workers from the Minot area have traveled out of state for jobs because of lack of local work, he said.
Schwan said some workers who have come from other parts of the state or other states have chosen to move to the community for the duration of the construction, in some cases purchasing property. Not all the employees might originate in Minot but all are benefiting the local economy, he said.
"We are using the best resources we can find, with a preference for local when possible. That's been our position from the get-go and JE Dunn has helped us to do that," Schwan said.
In the spring of 2021, workers will begin the exterior site work, including the parking lot and finishing the permanent panels on the buildings so by the end of next fall, the structures will appear finished on the outside.
"We're just very excited for this facility because it's going to serve the whole region for generations - and with state of the art equipment," Schwan said. "It's going to be an amazing facility, and we're very, very proud of it as we think the whole community will be."