Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital

Located on the Hershey Medical Center Campus in Hershey, Pennsylvania is the Penn State Medical Center Children’s Hospital. Strong Tower was contracted by The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company to participate in the vertical expansion of the existing Children’s Hospital. This project consisted of approximately 126,000 square feet of new clinical space, by adding three additional floor levels (6, 7, 8), to the existing 263,000 square foot operational hospital. Nationally ranked and the most fully equipped hospital in the area to treat severely ill children, this addition provided space for the new state-of-the-art Women and Babies Center.

This contract included the Curtain Wall system with structural steel supports, ribbon windows, and associated glazing, and the circular punched windows with associated glazing. Strong Tower also supplied and installed the Curtain Wall glass fins. Framing material for this project was provided by a long-time partner and supplier, Kawneer.

Strong Tower’s shop, located in Louisville, Kentucky, built the frames for this project. Each frame was carefully packaged and shipped to the project site. The frames were installed and glazed onsite by Strong Tower.

Strong Tower procured the services of Truepoint Laser Scanning to perform a 3D scan of the elevations during the shop drawing phase of the project. The primary objective was to capture laser scan data from the curved exterior to expose structural and architectural elements of the existing below five-story Curtain Wall. With this data, and extensive engineering in this Design-Build project, the complex curved façade was replicated in the new floors, which were built on top of the existing lower levels. Wind loads provided challenging steel support, both internally to the curtain wall and externally to the building structure. Panels and vertical glass fins added to the modern look of the new building-top addition. Phenolic composite soffit panels from River Supply and Trespa Meteon panels added to the ventilated façade system.

The Buchanan Contracting Group provided and installed the Joint Firestopping using the 3M Fire Barrier Watertight Spray to achieve a three-hour fire protection, and as well, provided the thermal insulation at the window openings above and below the framed fire rated openings.

The project’s “strip windows” used the Kawneer 1600UT System 1 Curtain Wall. This system was used for the 8 1/4” and 11 ¼” framing. There was a combination of 1” and 1 ¾” triple-glazed insulating units.

All work began at the fifth level of the building. Cranes and Ergo robotic glass manipulators with winch and swing stages comprised the equipment needed to install the façade materials. The vertical expansion was installed while lower-level floors were fully operational and functioning during the Covid 19 Pandemic of 2020. Implementing and following CDC guidelines, the hospital and the construction project continued while protecting the health and safety of the workers and workplace.

This project achieved a LEED Certification. In addition, this project promoted Diverse Business Enterprise participation.