ANSWERING THE CALL
McCormick Place COVID-19 Alternate Care Facility: Hall B Tour
Take a tour through Hall B of the McCormick Place Alternate Care Facility. Walsh Construction completed the temporary conversion of Chicago’s McCormick Place Convention Center into an Alternate Care Facility (ACF) for coronavirus (COVID-19) patients on April 24, 2020. The unprecedented facility has the capacity to treat up to 3,000 low-to-moderate acuity patients across three of the convention center’s halls, where patients are separated by the level of care required.
In just under 26 days from project award to project completion, Walsh converted approximately 1.5 million square feet of convention space into a facility focused on patient care, infection control, fire protection and life safety. Hall B’s own air was used as the supply air, but a system was created to pull the return air out of the tented isolation pods to create negative pressure in the tents so that any contamination in the rooms could be filtered and drawn out of the building instead of exhausted back into it. HEPA filters will purify anything that’s coming out of a patient isolation pod. Each isolation pod was designed with in-line oxygen, medical vacuum, and medical air.