The name of the building is
the Joan and Paul Rubschlager Building
and they are gracious donors
who made a sizable gift to Rush,
and we are recognizing them
by naming the building after them.
It makes us feel good that we can do this.
Rush is just so important to us in so many ways.
Over 50 years, we've been going.
And they had a business
on the West Side of Chicago, Rubschlager Breads,
and they used to bring their employees here
if there were any injuries or illnesses on the job,
and they, too, also get their care here,
and so we're very excited
and very pleased for their gracious donation.
The biggest part of my role is making sure
that the design and functionality
of this building works for most for our patients and staff,
making sure that that experience is top-notch.
I have been a nurse about 30 years,
and I've been in leadership roles for the past 20 years
and prior to that practiced as a clinician
at both the bedside and an ambulatory practice
in cancer and infectious diseases and HIV care.
My role in the development of
the Joan and Paul Rubschlager Building
is heading up the design and construction end,
so I get to work with a lot of great people here at Rush
in the architecture and design team and the contractors,
have some really good folks in place.
Originally, the building design was supposed
to encompass all of our ambulatory practices.
We realized that we really want to concentrate our efforts
on our cancer program and growing that program.
And so it really evolved into a destination center
for cancer and then also for our neurosciences programs.
So those are the two main residents
that are planned for the new building.
All right, good morning, everybody.
Operations for this coming week.
So beginning of 2020, the project was doing well.
We already were at steel and fireproofing was going on.
We had some of the curtain wall showing up.
And then COVID hits.
All of a sudden we're faced with, "What do we do?"
And the decision was made to go ahead
and actually slow down on the construction of the building.
It also did give us an opportunity, though,
to reassess the volumes for our program.
So what we did is we took a look at the volume projections
for cancer and neurosciences again.
Patients would like to receive some
of our services closer to their homes,
so not everything needs to be done down here on this campus.
So it gives the organization more of an opportunity
to do something different with the eighth floor
of the building than we had originally anticipated.
So now we're about at least 300 workers a day on the site.
So we're back up to speed.
Right now we're shooting for substantial completion,
which means most of the construction is done
by September of '22.
We were supposed to be putting the bridge up in June.
We ran into a little snafu
and kind of delayed its installation by a few weeks.
The bridge trusses are manufactured in Minnesota
in six pieces, four 50-foot pieces and two 74-foot pieces.
It was a huge milestone.
It's connecting kind of two parts of the campus.
This is our entree onto the east side of Ashland.
Well, it's just a great pleasure to be able to be here
and watch these huge pieces go into place.
It's amazing.
We've watched Rush since it was a find a place
to park on the street and walk over to it
and it's been a long time
and we've really watched it grow
and enjoyed every bit of it.
To see it connected back into the tower
is certainly momentous
and it's nice to see those green trusses up
and it's going to be exciting summer
to watch the finishing touches go on that bridge.
So the plan right now is that our first patient will
be in January of '23.
What we're working on now, on the activation plan,
is to really decide whether we're going
to open everything all at once one day, big bang approach,
or if we're going to phase it open over multiple weeks.
I'm in favor of let's just do it.
Let's get it done one day.