White Plains Hospital

Day Elevator and Lift overcomes challenges to install material lifts in a New York hospital.

by Evan Petrower

Day Elevator and Lift was contracted to install two Matot material lifts with a winding drum system for White Plains Hospital, in White Plains, New York. Day’s role was a small piece of the larger project, but it was critical to the Certificate of Occupancy. Beyond the typical challenges of large projects — multiple design teams, architects and stakeholders — there was a short timeline to complete the project. Then, COVID-19 hit.

The large machines were to be installed on the fourth and fifth floors of the hospital, with one unit for clean laundry and the other for dirty laundry. Excessive COVID-19 precautions were implemented by the general contractor Turner Construction Corp. Protocols followed were daily temperature checks, proper PPE, symptom surveys completed and one-way staircases. This meant each time we needed to use the staircase, we had to walk the entire length of the floor to use the other stairway.

Beyond the typical challenges of large projects — multiple design teams, architects and stakeholders — there was a short timeline to complete the project. Then, COVID-19 hit.

The units were trucked in, and the team used Schindler service elevators to move the material lifts to their corresponding floors one piece at a time using pallet jacks and an “A” frame. Double Masonite was laid on the floors, as well as anti-skid heavy-duty plastic to protect the floors while we moved equipment from the service elevator to the shafts.

With the many trades and construction on-site, the product was ordered with the cab assembled. While Matot manufactured the unit, the interior walls at the site were being built. As a result, a major problem was how to fit a 62 in. box through a 36 in. corridor. The solution was to disassemble each unit and reassemble, which added an additional 25% installation time. Due to the fact that we were in a hospital following FDA guidelines, all cab walls and furnishes were stainless steel.

There were various conflicts with Department of Buildings regulations for the elevator construction and the end user application. With the help and cooperation of everyone on the team, all issues were resolved, and the project was completed in May 2021.