Topping Out Starts New Phase of Work at Banner-UMC Tucson

 |  Laboratories & Healthcare
BUMCT 5
Steel workers get ready to lift the final beam to the top of the Banner-UMC Tucson tower on Jan. 18.

The Banner-University Medical Center Tucson joint venture construction team celebrated the building’s topping out Jan. 18, signaling the end of structural steel work on the 670,000-square-foot healthcare facility.

Steel work took about five months to complete and the combined material was tall enough to reach the top of Mount Lemmon, the 9,171-foot peak located north of Tucson. But there’s still plenty to do before the facility begins welcoming patients in a little more than two years, including:

  • Placing 17,000 cubic yards of concrete, enough to build a 3-foot-wide sidewalk from Tucson to Phoenix;
  • installing more than a million pounds of ductwork;
  • putting in 1,700 plumbing fixtures;
  • setting up 19,000 light fixtures.