The Hill Group Rises to Even Greater Heights
In the warm, waning days of summer, mechanical crews are replenishing their ranks in a push to bring the $1-billion Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago on line by late fall.
“We peaked with 80 workers or so, then got really skinny for awhile,” says Scott Tranter, group vice president with The Hill Group, the project's Franklin Park, Ill.-based mechanical contractor. “Today, we're back up to about 25.”
The task at hand is almost a project unto itself, one of several Hill has tackled as the 23-story structure has taken shape on the campus of Northwestern Medical Center, located in the heart of Chicago's Gold Coast.
On the fifth floor, crews have begun building out the facility's imaging center, one of the last of the project's myriad spaces to come on line.
Specifications for the center are unique. To prevent RF signals from disrupting testing, spaces are lined by a contiguous layer of lead and copper shielding. Accordingly, piping and ductwork require special fittings to maintain the enclosure's integrity.
The center's equipment, which performs CT scans and MRIs, likewise requires specialized cooling. “The scanners generate a lot of heat due to associated computers and electronics,” says Tranter, “so we're installing a dedicated cooling system that calls for chilled water connections.”
Expectations are high for the 1.25-million-sq-ft facility. Systems are so advanced that hospital officials required that all project team members be proficient in building information modeling (BIM). Hill is a veteran of the technology, having mastered it several years ago.
The firm, whose revenue neared $200 million last year, also knows the lay of this particular land. Under the auspices of its building operations group, which deploys stationary engineers to commandeer some 32 million sq ft of space, Hill employees are scattered throughout the Northwestern campus.
“Our operations group is a separate cost center,” says Tranter, “but for projects like Children's, we can usually be assured of at least getting a phone call” when new work is up for consideration.
Though conventional design and construction services have landed Hill work on some of Chicago's most iconic buildings, including the Field Museum, John G. Shedd Aquarium and the Art Institute of Chicago, it is the firm's growing array of specialty services that is driving much of Hill's growth these days.
“Four or five years ago, I would have told you we're a Chicago firm, but BIM has given us the smarts and the parts to begin branching into other regions,” says Bob Krier, Hill president.
Hill currently is at work on a data center in Salt Lake City for which it is modeling and prefabricating large ductwork in Chicago. It's much the same story with Karle Hospital, a 9-story bed tower in Urbana, Ill., for which Hill is modeling and prefabricating VAV reheating boxes, among other items.
“A component like the VAV box typically requires the assembly of 34 parts, but here we're delivering it as a single, monolithic unit,” says Krier. “We built it virtually with a database that accounts for the thickness of items such as gaskets between flanges. If the parts don't match up dimensionally, your assembly isn't going to do you much good.”
Hill's proficiency with BIM and system prefabrication has made it the contractor of choice for such projects as the new Rivers Casino in suburban Des Plaines, Ill., a $450-million facility that earned $17 million in its first two weeks of operation. “Every hour a casino is delayed is an hour the casino isn't making money,” says Krier.
The firm operates across a full spectrum of project types, from pharmaceutical and educational facilities to offices, hotels and residential towers. The dynamics are fluid, so employees are likely to encounter a variety of project types over the course of their careers. “We have no 'groups' and never will,” says Krier. “If there's a need to take on health-care work, we become health-care experts.”
Today, the firm bundles its services to provide a one-stop shop for pre- and post-occupancy needs. The first such project it undertook was 111 S. Wacker, a 52-story speculative office building in Chicago for which Hill provided design, construction, commissioning, test-and-balance and operations services. Chicago developer John Buck Co. was so pleased with the results that it hired Hill to perform the same suite of mechanical services on its next project, 155 S. Wacker, another speculative high-rise.
Hill has since added additional services to its roster, including energy audits for local utility ComED, an initiative that dovetails nicely with firm efforts to ramp up its recommissioning efforts.
“The objective is to help building owners better understand and realize their sustainability goals, whether by reducing energy consumption or better managing their use of water and sewers,” says Teri Lewand, Hill energy solutions manager. “Depending on the project, we may perform renovations that leverage our construction capabilities.”
Hill even identifies potential sources of funding for clients, including federal tax incentives, utility rebate programs and private grants.
For now, Lewand's group is placing particular emphasis on health-care and higher-education facilities, though she acknowledges that neither is low-hanging fruit from a contracting perspective. “Hospitals are very energy-intensive,” she says. “What's holding them back is a recent spate of mergers and acquisitions as well as potential changes to their reimbursement plans.”
The higher-education market is proving problematic for other reasons. “Many universities have maxed out their debt,” Lewand says.
Even so, Hill has a way of starting small and finishing big. “It gets our juices flowing,” says Krier.
