CHOC Children’s Hospital and Texas Children’s Maternity Center
Celebrate Major Construction Milestones

June 3, 2010
Two significant FKP pediatric health care projects recently held “topping out” ceremonies, celebrating major construction milestones. 

On May 27, 2010, CHOC Children’s Hospital in Orange, California celebrated the placement of the final structural steel beam with a barbecue lunch for the project’s construction workers.  During the luncheon, project team members signed the I-beam, adorned with an American flag and an evergreen tree, and hoisted it to the top of the structure.  The project includes a new 425,000 square-foot patient tower and the renovation of a 50,000 square-foot existing facility.

June 3, 2010 brought the topping out ceremony for Texas Children’s Hospital’s $575 million maternity center in Houston. At the event an 18-foot Red Oak tree was raised to the top level of the building, symbolizing unity, growth and the new life in the Texas Medical Center. The new 790,000 square-foot maternity center incorporates a 15-floor maternity hospital, clinic and office space as well as some pediatric components built over a four-level parking garage.  Focused on high-risk deliveries, the maternity center will connect with the existing campus through an elliptical pedestrian bridge.  The unique two-level bridge will provide private passage for patients on the upper floor, while the public will travel on the lower level. 

Originating in Scandinavia, the “topping out” celebration — in which a tree is placed on top of a new building to make the tree-dwelling spirits of ancestors displaced during construction happy again — is now a popular way to mark significant construction milestones.

For further information about CHOC Children's Hospital, click here.

For further information about Texas Children's Maternity Center, click here.