When Bob Dylan recorded Nashville Skyline in 1969, the result was described as ‘ground-breaking,’ and, as Mastclimbers LLC in Atlanta continue to explore the true value and flexibility of the product, ‘ground-breaking’ is again the phrase that comes to mind.
“The extension to the existing Vanderbilt hospital is in a tight city center environment, and since the original hospital was built, there have been many building additions and traffic management changes, making it impossible to erect anything from the ground up,” said Bobby Reese, co-founder of Mastclimbers LLC. “We have ambulances racing out of the ground level area and helicopters landing on the helipad on the roof, and in between we had to provide façade access for the specialist trades.”
The answer was to mount the mast climbers on an arrangement of support beams, keeping everything 75 feet above the busy streets below.
“In addition to the ambulances and helicopter activity (the tower crane had to stop operations when the helicopter was landing/taking off, and it was a regular occurrence), there was only room on the job to unload one truck at a time, and concrete drilling was prohibited after 8 a.m.,” said Steve Kunz, project manager for Mastclimbers. “There was no viable solution for the provision of access on this job until we got involved. The contractor, Alexander Metals, was delighted with the result.”
“Balfour Beatty, the general contractor on the project needed access to the external façade areas for multi-discipline contractors,” said Kunz. “The key was to achieve this aim safely, while the hospital continued its day-to-day business undisturbed.”
