WILMINGTON, Del. — Patients, families, Nemours associates and other invited guests recently gathered on the grounds of Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children to celebrate the placement of the final steel beam for the hospital’s expansion. Set to open in 2014, the expansion was designed by families, for families and will feature all single-patient rooms. The topping out recognizes the safe and successful completion of the building’s steel infrastructure, and is an important milestone in the project.

Key Facts

•    In August 2011, Nemours kicked off a 450,000-square-foot expansion of the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children. This $257-million project will create an environment that promotes healing and advances the quality of care provided at the hospital. 
•    The white beam, signed by Nemours employees, patients, families and others involved with the expansion, was lifted in place with the “help” of a 4-foot by 4-foot hand crank that ceremony participants used to symbolically lift the beam to its highest point.
•    An evergreen tree decorated with the wishes and dreams of children from Nemours’ clinical practices in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida was attached to the beam. These sentiments, written on seed paper, will be planted around the hospital along with the evergreen and given the opportunity to grow and flouris.

Construction by the numbers:
•    Number of micropiles drilled into the bedrock to support the expansion: 1,003
•    Tons of rock and other material excavated from the site: 113,000
•    Tons of structural steel included in the project: 2,534
•    Capacity of underground cisterns to control rainwater runoff: 220,000 gallons

Skanska USA Building is the general contractor for the expansion. FKP Architects is the designer for the expansion.

“With this topping out ceremony, the evolution of Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children pays tribute to our legacy and prepares us for a future filled with promise as we seek to make our children the healthiest in the nation,” said David J. Bailey, MD, MBA, president & CEO, Nemours.