December 14, 2000

Hospital job is deja vu for project manager

Bill Maibusch is no Sisyphus, but he was surprised to find himself demolishing parts of a building he helped construct 20 years earlier, only to rebuild it again.

Photo by Jon Silver Bill Maibusch cut his teeth in the construction industry 20 years ago at Good Sam.

The DPR Construction project manager is overseeing the construction of Good Samaritan Hospital's west wing addition. The nonprofit Puyallup facility and its surrounding community has grown rapidly in recent years, which has spurred the construction and renovation of a number of areas throughout its complex. The $30 million, 80,000-square-foot west wing addition leads into a 30,000-square-foot renovation project in a section of the hospital that Maibusch helped construct as a project engineer for another firm in 1980.

Maibusch described his return to the project as "fluke luck."

In 1980, the Chicago native had just earned his master's degree in architecture from the University of Illinois, and thought he was on his way to the Virgin Islands for his first job assignment. Much to his disappointment, the project was put on hold just two weeks before he was set to leave -- his car was already in storage -- and after a brief stint in Texas he learned he would be sent to Puyallup ... wherever that was.

Upon discovering that he was headed to the Seattle area, Maibusch thought, "Oh no, all it does is rain there."

But his relationship with Puyallup has been anything but stormy. After completing Good Samaritan's original west wing, he stayed in town for good, leaving only to complete a project in Alaska.

In 1999, a year after joining up with DPR, Maibusch returned to a hospital that looked much the same as it had before, and even employed some of the same administrative staff he had worked with the first time around. "It's nice coming back and seeing the same people working here 20 years later," he said.

The construction challenges of the site are the same as well. The west end of the hospital is flanked by a narrow street, a parking garage and a pedestrian walkway. A 12-inch, high-pressure water main that's "not that deep in places" cuts through the jobsite, too. "We're literally shoehorning the building in," said Maibusch.

With its cramped staging area, Maibusch compared the project to "doing something downtown." He felt lucky to have been able to convert a hospital-owned guesthouse across the street from the site into DPR's job office. A host of additional office trailers fill up the remainder of the property.

The construction crew has operated equipment such as the tower crane from wedged-in spaces that contribute to the difficulty of the project. DPR dealt with the water main by rerouting it to accommodate the addition. After securing the approval of the city and the hospital, DPR was able to abandon an original section of the pipe in place.

But the most challenging aspect of the project, said Maibusch, was building into the side of a hill. However, the steep slope gave him his first chance to use a soil-nailed foundation system, which was employed to build a central plant facility in an area that is below grade on three sides by as much as 30 feet.

The system, which allows foundation walls to be placed while excavation continues downward in 6-foot increments, shaved a number of weeks off the construction schedule, said Maibusch.

The design-build team for the soil nailing was Ground Support PLLC and Malcolm Drilling Co.

The new addition will soon house the physical rehabilitation unit and a birthing center. The structure is a four-story, cast-in-place concrete and steel frame with brick veneer cladding. Much of the interior space won't be filled right away, so the hospital will have space to expand. The basement and ground floors are well on their way toward a February completion date, but the upper floors won't be completed until November.

DPR notably shaved eight months off the project by using a fast-track approach, which it coordinated with Mahlum Architects. With the cooperation of the city, said Maibusch, the project broke ground once the structural design was completed, eight months before the permit for the interior work was issued last February.

Despite the passage of two decades, Maibusch found that he could easily recall many details of the original west wing project, down to the page numbers of old project documents. As he toured the site, he pointed out structures he remembered installing, and their attendant design problems.

But now that he's reconstructing the hospital that serves him and his adopted community, the project has taken on a more personal dimension for him. "I'm enjoying it a lot more now," he said. "When this job came up I was really looking forward to it."

Maibusch has also enjoyed the rewards of returning to a project with greater experience and a new perspective. Construction practices and technology, too, have improved over the years, he said. In particular, enhanced communication among planners and end-users -- both technologically and in a more collaborative sense -- have reduced the length of projects while improving their quality.

But while Maibusch has been happy to contribute to Good Samaritan's future, he admitted that it was difficult to accept that parts of the hospital he helped create were getting demolished. When a long canopy outside the west wing was brought down, Maibusch decided to remain in his office. "I couldn't watch it."

But like Sisyphus of Greek legend, Maibusch returned to push his boulder up the mountain again, flushed with the knowledge that no achievement is permanent.

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• Flash Gordon meets the backhoe, 11-30-2000
• Vegetated rooftops are taking root, 11-16-2000
• Seattle firm focuses on keeping concrete clean, 11-09-2000
• New span bridges the past, 11-02-2000
• Constructive education, 10-26-2000
• New furniture line departs from the norm, 10-19-2000
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