Full Steam Ahead

Photos by dawn quinn

FULL STEAM AHEAD. CEO and President of MultiCare, Diane Cecchettini addressed the community and gave thanks to all who worked on the new steam plant facility at its open house, which took place on March 31.

Upon passing Wright Park while driving down ‘I’ Street, motorists will notice that something new and eye-catching has sprung up on the right-hand side of the street in the past few months.

That something is a beautiful brick edifice with see-through windows that reveal numerous colorful pipes crisscrossing inside – all together, composing MultiCare’s newest steam plant facility.

On March 31, MultiCare opened the doors to the facility and asked the community to come and take a look inside their newest addition to the North Slope district.

This open house was a welcome payoff to those community members and MultiCare employees who had been involved with the planning of the building, since discussion about it started back in late 2006.

Prior to breaking ground on the location in the summer of 2007, community members became intensely involved with the process and wanted to get their voices and opinions on the subject heard. They wanted to ensure that the new steam plant did not harm historic Wright Park and that the exterior of the building would not evolve into an industrial eyesore that completely clashed with the classic and clean architecture existing around the park.

Denny Faker, a vocal member of the Stadium District Merchant group, was instrumental in getting the community’s voice heard and acknowledged.

“I called the Wright Park Neighborhood Association and told them that we had ideas for ways they could get the appearance (of the building) right. The original design of the big mirror building didn’t belong here,” Faker stated.

After some give-and-take resulted from numerous city council, community, and business-district meetings, a happy, aesthetically pleasing medium was reached.

Designs by Portland-based architect firm Giffen-Bolte-Jurgens won the day.

“MultiCare was glad that we could work with the community on this, and come to a compromise,” said Todd Kelley of MultiCare.

The four-story building is made of 32,376 bricks, 430,000 pounds of rebar, and 346 tons of structural steel.

“This building is meant to sustain an 8.5 earthquake,” Kelley said.

Three boilers and three emergency generators are housed on the inside that will power the medical campus in case of an emergency or power outage.

On the exterior, names of many inventors and scientists who made great advances in physics and engineering, such as Andre-Marie Ampere and Nikola Tesla, are etched into the building in order to pay homage to their achievements and to affirm that the interior workings of the building could not have happened without their work.

Various colors of paint were used on the pipelines inside the building to denote the different types of gas and fuel pumping through them, including gas, steam, water, and conduits – all supplying energy to the MultiCare campus. The brightly colored piping inside the building – contrasting with the brick outside – gives the structure a unique, artistic feel to supplement all of the scientific processes happening inside.

In addition to being structurally sound and exceptionally well crafted, the building is also 80 percent energy efficient, and allows the building to emit less emissions, meet stringent Environmental Protection Agency standards, be more environmentally conscious, and is also quieter, too.

CEO and President of MultiCare Diane Cecchettini spoke at the open house about the first steam plant at MultiCare, which was built in 1915, and was last revised in 1963. “This plant is dedicated to the engineers, the quiet, unsung heroes of this project,” Cecchettini said. She also thanked the neighbors and community leaders for their help on the project, but took time to note the individuals for which the plant was really built.

“This boiler room, more than anything, is about our patients’ care.”

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