Jul. 18—LAURINBURG — Scotland County Health Care System officials and staff and construction workers and representatives with the Christman Company celebrated a major construction milestone Tuesday morning, the placing of the top-most steel beam on Scotland Memorial Hospital’s latest expansion.
The act was part of a topping-out ceremony held at the construction site where Scotland Health is investing more than $45 million in expansion and renovations at the hospital. Last year, the system’s board of trustees voted unanimously to approve expanding the Imaging Department, building new Operating Rooms, and renovating the Surgical Services Department.
The Christman Company is the construction manager of the project.
“I’m really excited and I think the entire community is to see this underway,” said Sybil Bullard, the chair of SCHS’s board of trustees. “I think it says a lot about our commitment to the community … While I live in the adjoining community, I’m extremely happy to see this because I know that my family and my friends are getting the services they need right here. “
Ellen Standish, from McCulloch England Architects, recognized the project’s design team which includes Dewberry Engineers based out of Raleigh, Benesch of Charlotte, Brett Peters for structural engineering also out of Charlotte and Detailed by Design out of Davidson.
Standish said England Architech’s first project at Scotland Memorial was in 1989 and it is “still standing.”
“This surgery expansion project is truly the most exciting project for the system and will be an asset to the community with its new state-of-the-art operating rooms, sterile processing department, endoscopy rooms, pre-op rooms and recovery rooms, ” Standish said.
Standish said getting to the point in construction that was celebrated Tuesday was a process and there was a “lot of underground infrastructure that you can’t see.”
“[B]ut we are all happy to see the shape of the building come and looking forward to the finished project and to our continued relationship,” Standish said.
Delois King, senior project manager for the Christman Company, said the topping out was a celebration of the completion of the “skeleton” of the building structure.
“It’s a tradition that is often recognized with most construction company projects … As we watch the raising of the beam, we celebrate successfully completing the structure. This does not mean that the project is complete,” King said.
The raised beam proudly bestowed the Scotland County Health Care System flag, the Christman Company flag, the North Carolina flag and the American flag.
“We thought this was more symbolic with our partnership with the Scotland Memorial Hospital or system, our commitment to the community, the state and our country,” King explained.
“The flag is the representation of a mountaineer planting a flag or reaching a pinnacle, claiming the reward of being the first to make it to the top, declaring ownership of the country the flag stands for,” King continued.
The ceremony is also held to give all an opportunity to pause and be grateful for the progress of the building, King said.
“‘The price of success is hard work dedication to the job at hand and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand’… The entire project team, to the board of directors to the board of trustees to the construction workers, have put a lot of work into getting us here this far,” King said.
Before the beam was raised, those in attendance were encouraged to sign their name or write a message on the beam in the permanent market.
“This is your chance to be a part of history,” said David Pope, chief operating officer and senior vice president of Operations for Scotland Health.
Tomeka Sinclair is the editor of the Laurinburg Exchange, She can be reached at [email protected] or 910-416-3169.
