PHILADELPHIA | Penn Medicine South Tower | 302 FT | 19 FLOORS

[shadowbat2]

^From my rough count I think they are on 17 now with two more to go, I would think at 302 feet it would exceed the height of the Smillow tower. (anyone know the roof height for that BTW)

Not construction related, but this article gives a good idea of what this place will be about:
http://www.philly.com/philly/health/279377922.html

[summersm343]

Originally Posted by shadowbat2

^From my rough count I think they are on 17 now with two more to go, I would think at 302 feet it would exceed the height of the Smillow tower. (anyone know the roof height for that BTW)

Not construction related, but this article gives a good idea of what this place will be about:
http://www.philly.com/philly/health/279377922.html

Smilow Tower is 295 feet tall. This will exceed it by 7 feet.

The inside of this building will be amazing, and what will be going on inside really outweighs how ugly this is on the outside.

Funny that the New CHOP Buerger Center, Smilow and this are all within a few feet of each other (292, 295 and 302 feet tall respectively). What we need is a 400 and 500 footer in the mix to break up the height.

[GarCastle]

Originally Posted by summersm343

Funny that the New CHOP Buerger Center, Smilow and this are all within a few feet of each other (292, 295 and 302 feet tall respectively). What we need is a 400 and 500 footer in the mix to break up the height.

The Penn non-clinical tower might be higher, though when I walked by yesterday morning the land in front of the parking garage being constructed looked pretty enormous. I thought it was going to be a thin tower (front to back) so fairly high, but now I'm not so sure. There were also several inches (if not feet) of water in a large portion of it.

Would be nice if they built the crap out of the non-clinical so they can actually have room to get departments together and actually have room to hire more. Time will tell.

The inpatient tower will definitely make the others look short. If Penn is to give parts of the existing hospital back to campus, they really need to build the new towers to last a long time. $1.5 billion sounds like they are planning on that.

Cheers,
G.

[Flyers2001]

Topped off, except for the mechanical pieces to the roof.

Another cool feature of this building which I have to get a picture of is the green roof they just installed on the lower portion. They laid down sod. I am curious to know if they will be installing railing/wall around to allow patients/employees to enjoy.

[shadowbat2]

Taken Thursday:
025 by tehshadowbat, on Flickr

028 by tehshadowbat, on Flickr

058 by tehshadowbat, on Flickr

Working inside....
064 by tehshadowbat, on Flickr

067 by tehshadowbat, on Flickr

[summersm343]

Steel going up again. Officially taller than the Smilow Research Center.

[Flyers2001]

In regards to a separate part of this building, I saw some initial plans for the new bridge from HUP to Perelman. It seems the new Bridge will be entering Perelman where the old one was suppose to go, directly on the corner. Someone is losing an office. A new Support beam will be place at the corner and it will elbow from there.

An exact timetable has not been set, but September is the targeted month for Penn Tower garage demolition. Which means late 2015 or early 2016 for a new bridge.

[shadowbat2]

September? I was thinking it would have been a lot sooner being how fast they've built the new garage so far:
076 by tehshadowbat, on Flickr

073 by tehshadowbat, on Flickr
^Figured it would be another month or two of erecting the last precast and getting everything hooked up inside....

[Flyers2001]

Originally Posted by shadowbat2

September? I was thinking it would have been a lot sooner being how fast they've built the new garage so far:

^Figured it would be another month or two of erecting the last precast and getting everything hooked up inside....

Yeah, September is the target date. It's not about how fast the other garage gets built, but how fast Perelman gets done. Many of the remaining offices that are being moved from Penn Tower are going to Perelman.

[GarCastle]

Originally Posted by Flyers2001

Yeah, September is the target date. It's not about how fast the other garage gets built, but how fast Perelman gets done. Many of the remaining offices that are being moved from Penn Tower are going to Perelman.

Some staff are getting shuffled into basements of other buildings. I would have thought that Perelman "South" (more East than South) would have enough space but apparently not. Especially considering many groups of clinicians want to move into that space to be near everything else patient-involved. Patients would rather do two appointments near each other, than have to drive or transit out to another. So non-clinicians get shoved into basements and wherever they can LOL.

I cut through the "Staff" entrance this morning underneath the construction, and that part of the building is even more confusing than the rest of Perelman. Once the "South" extension is open it will likely be even more bizarre.

Cheers,
G.

[GarCastle]

Originally Posted by Flyers2001

In regards to a separate part of this building, I saw some initial plans for the new bridge from HUP to Perelman. It seems the new Bridge will be entering Perelman where the old one was suppose to go, directly on the corner. Someone is losing an office. A new Support beam will be place at the corner and it will elbow from there.

An exact timetable has not been set, but September is the targeted month for Penn Tower garage demolition. Which means late 2015 or early 2016 for a new bridge.

I heard today from an AVP that Labor Day is the target, though he wasn't positive if that was the start or end of demolition but it was for the tower. He believed the garage would be earlier.

As far as the office, it looks like it is a straight shot from the hallway of the "East" pavilion to the corner of Silverstein where the existing bridge exits the main HUP building block. Where that large gravel is sitting apparently for no purpose - but maybe that is why it's there?

Cheers,
G.

[shakman]

Originally Posted by summersm343

Steel going up again. Officially taller than the Smilow Research Center.

It looks so much more impressive in person as I noticed while on the Schuykill Expressway.

[summersm343]

Originally Posted by shakman

It looks so much more impressive in person as I noticed while on the Schuykill Expressway.

It really is. Smillow, this development and Evo are very imposing coming North (West) on 76

[Flyers2001]

Originally Posted by GarCastle

I cut through the "Staff" entrance this morning underneath the construction, and that part of the building is even more confusing than the rest of Perelman. Once the "South" extension is open it will likely be even more bizarre.

Cheers,
G.

Its really ugly back there. Construction every where!

The Garage will probably be sooner. A combination of two things will happen, Lot across from Lot 51 will open and they probably going to extend the hours of Perelman's parking garage to 24/7, if they can get the proper security in place to assure the building remains on shut down after hours.

I am waiting to hear if they will be running a two shuttle system from the new garage. Hopefully they separate employees and patients.

[GarCastle]

Originally Posted by Flyers2001

Its really ugly back there. Construction every where!

The Garage will probably be sooner. A combination of two things will happen, Lot across from Lot 51 will open and they probably going to extend the hours of Perelman's parking garage to 24/7, if they can get the proper security in place to assure the building remains on shut down after hours.

I am waiting to hear if they will be running a two shuttle system from the new garage. Hopefully they separate employees and patients.

Oops yeah, I think I forgot to mention that they said there would be a shuttle service to the UPHS garage. I suppose they could help patients with that longer walk via the valet service. I'm betting they are waiting for more donations before they give the "UPHS Garage" and its eventual tower real names heh.

The "south" expansion tower looks quite impressive from the front of Perelman as well. I've snapped a few phone photos I should try to upload this weekend.

Cheers,
G.

[Flyers2001]

Originally Posted by GarCastle

Oops yeah, I think I forgot to mention that they said there would be a shuttle service to the UPHS garage. I suppose they could help patients with that longer walk via the valet service. I'm betting they are waiting for more donations before they give the "UPHS Garage" and its eventual tower real names heh.

The "south" expansion tower looks quite impressive from the front of Perelman as well. I've snapped a few phone photos I should try to upload this weekend.

Cheers,
G.

They will probably just give the garage a number like 51 across the street or 7 behind Penn Tower.

They will be installing a sign on PCAM south. It will have the Penn Medicine logo and name with Jordan Medical Education Center.

[summersm343]

[GarCastle]

Spoke to someone working in Penn Tower, 21st floor, and she is getting moved over to Centre Square in a few weeks. I knew some folks were going over there on a new floor but it sounds like more Penn Tower workers are going to multiple floors in 1500 Market.

Apparently the air conditioning is shot in Penn Tower so the time line has just moved up for emptying it out. I don't know what the issue is with the A/C and it may or may not affect the whole building (I would think it does).

So this "South" extension work is likely even more critical timing-wise for the Penn Tower empty out and tear down.

Cheers,
G.

[Flyers2001]

Originally Posted by GarCastle

Spoke to someone working in Penn Tower, 21st floor, and she is getting moved over to Centre Square in a few weeks. I knew some folks were going over there on a new floor but it sounds like more Penn Tower workers are going to multiple floors in 1500 Market.

Apparently the air conditioning is shot in Penn Tower so the time line has just moved up for emptying it out. I don't know what the issue is with the A/C and it may or may not affect the whole building (I would think it does).

So this "South" extension work is likely even more critical timing-wise for the Penn Tower empty out and tear down.

Cheers,
G.

It does not affect the whole building. The 21st floor has some major issues with leaks, with the incoming winter I doubt they will invest money to fix.

There are draining issues with the air conditioning that affects several floors, most notably the Lower Level.

Even with all these issues the building demolition date is being moved back to February 2016. The rumors are that they want to complete several other projects before starting demo and reconstruction.

Every 1-2 months a floor has been moved out of Penn Tower. Blood donor was 3 months ago, Nurse Recruitment was 2 months ago. We'll know its about to go when they empty the 6th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 14th, 16th floor and most importantly the 15th where Driscoll has their offices.

PCAM South continues to have issues as the alarms go off for fires at least once a week. They have now hired full time security to watch over the construction site 24/7.

[summersm343]

11/16/2014