If you happen to see construction equipment demolishing buildings at the site of the old Virtua Hospital at Evesham Road and Carnie Boulevard, don’t be alarmed.
Last night, officials from Virtua held a community question and answer session for nearby neighbors and business owners to discuss future plans for the old hospital.
The hospital was rendered useless and closed for business last May, when Virtua opened its doors to patients at the new hospital located off of Route 73.
At the meeting, Virtua staff announced work was set to begin on Monday, June 4 to remove the old hospital building, along with the helicopter hanger and helipad, the former Summit Surgical Center and the office building at 1 Carnie Boulevard.
“You probably won’t recognize our guys are here,” said Bill Cotellese, the demolition project manager with R.E. Pierson. “We want to try to get Surgical Summit down as soon as possible. We want to get the office down as soon as possible and be done with the demolition so we can go into the hospital as soon as possible.”
The first and last thing to go up around the site is a six-foot high chain link fence, said Virtua’s John Angelucci. The removal of the office building and Surgical Summit building should take about four to six weeks. The project, he anticipates will take about three to four months to complete.
Residents questioned the safety of the project, and how patients would still be able to access some of the buildings on campus, which will remain open.
Bill Swanson of Turner Construction told neighbors at the meeting that traffic would still be able to move on Carnie Boulevard and that during the hours of construction work, a flag person would direct traffic behind the old hospital building where there is no traffic signal.
Trucks would access the site via Mohrfeld Drive, which runs adjacent to Carnie Boulevard.
Construction is restricted to weekdays only; from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Virtua security will continue to stay on site and monitor the campus. Virtua staff, including a safety director, will be on site. The contractor, R.E. Pierson will also employ a safety officer on site.
Voorhees township officials, including administrator Larry Spellman, construction officer Steve Murray, fire chief James Pacifico and police captain Louis Bordi, are working closely with Virtua to keep tabs on the demolition, along with Karen Mullen from the Camden County Soil Conservation District.
Neighbors at the meeting also questioned how buildings would be demolished on the 38-acre property and if they would be able to hear the noise from their homes.
Cotellese said contractors are using a conventional method to taking down the buildings, with no implosion.
“There’s no wrecking ball. It’s an excavator with a large boom, it chews into a building.”
Cotellese said most of the residential population near the site is situated by the Surgical Summit Center. He said residents might be able to hear the diesel engines during demolition of that particular building, but that work is not expected to take long in that specific area.
Angelucci said contractors are well aware of the proximity between the Surgical Summit Center and neighboring homes.
“With Summit, we’ll be very careful taking it down,” he said.
Virtua also has a plan for keeping rats and mice at bay on and near the property.
“We’ve stepped up traps. We’ll put traps in prior and check up on them. We’ve been with Virtua since 2006,” said Mike Jenzano of Hoffman’s Extermination. “We don’t foresee any problems.”
Virtua officials said they had no future plans for the site, but deemed it safer and more cost effective to take the older buildings down.
Some residents questioned if Virtua wanted to demolish the buildings to prevent competition from occupying the hospital space and offices.
“We couldn’t even sell that building as a hospital,” Angelucci said. “There are no plans at this time and very little interest.”
