Aug. 18, 2022

By the beginning of next week, the hope is it will be back to building as usual at The Steel District after a crane tipped over Tuesday morning.

“We know what happened with the equipment, and it was not anything to do with our building,” said Jake Quasney, chief operating officer of developer and general contractor Lloyd Cos. “We had a failure when it came to that piece of equipment.”

No one was hurt.

The crane, which was operated by a subcontractor, hit the corner of the nine-story mixed-use building that will be mostly office space with restaurants on the main level. The accident happened as the crane was lifting a precast column.

Photo by Tea Storm Chasers

“If it was going to hit a part of the building, it hit the best possible part because it’s not a critical structural component of the building,” Quasney said.

Damage to the building appears to be “very minimal,” he said. “It initially appears that the column that absorbed the impact was not compromised, but we will do further analysis when the crane is removed.”

That will be soon. Engineers came on-site the day of the incident to do a structural analysis.

“OSHA came in even though it wasn’t a workplace accident but out of an abundance of caution,” Quasney said. “So everyone has evaluated the building structurally, and once the crane is out, we’ll do another evaluation before we do any more work on that portion of the building.”

There is equipment on-site to remove the crane, a process expected to be done by Saturday, and a new crane is expected to be there by Monday.

“We will be back to setting precast,” Quasney said. “The big thing is how important it is that everybody went home safe, and even more important, I was really proud of the way our team responded to it. Within 10 minutes of it going down, we had EMS on-site, myself, our VP of construction, our superintendent, our safety team was en route — it mobilized quickly — and we were able to determine we didn’t have injuries. We got the site secured very quickly, and I thought they did a fantastic job.”

The message to the team is that commitment to safety is critical and needs to continue, he added.

“Now, it’s about working with Gage Brothers and Gil Haugan Construction to solidify the team approach of getting through this and moving past the accident component to traction and getting to a point where we’re back to normal days, but doing so in a safe fashion. We don’t want to be looking back and making mistakes because we’re trying to make up ground.”

The development is on target to meet its move-in dates, though, Quasney said.

The parking ramp is done, footings are going in for the building that will wrap around it with retail, apartments and condominiums, and it’s expected to start going vertical in October. The office tower is on track to begin moving in tenants in less than a year. And footings are starting on the Canopy by Hilton hotel, which will go vertical shortly after the other building is wrapped around the ramp.

“We just continue to work to get it done despite some of the challenges that exist out there,” Quasney said.