North America Project Map

The Music City Center (MCC) will be a new convention center in Nashville, Tennessee, and is being built by a joint venture of Bell and Associates/Clark Construction/Harmony Group, with several sub contractors for groundwork, concrete, steel and roofing, among other areas of work.

Cranes being used for the three-year project range from a 28t boom truck to an all terrain. AmQuip says it had every crane from its Nashville yard on the MCC Project at one time or another, with up to 14 cranes on site at once.

The project also required five tower cranes brought in from outside of the Nashville office. The towers are being used for concrete pouring and formwork. Other lifts have included setting 146ft-long Bolt-T Beams for Precast Service, weighing 119,000lbs, in the main exhibition hall.

At the Kansas Statehouse a Comansa 21LC400 is being used for an exterior masonry restoration. According to Florian Rothbrust, contractor JE Dunn’s chief logistics officer, this crane is currently the tallest free-standing tower crane in North America.

The tower crane is 358ft tall, with a height under hook of 340ft, and a 262.4ft working radius. At maximum reach the lifting capacity is 6,610 lbs. For the majority of the project, the crane is used to pick limestone blocks for repairing the Statehouse’s Rotunda Drum. These stones vary in weight, typically between 500lbs. to 4,000lbs.

The crane has also been used to hoist steel beams, scaffold and miscellaneous materials/equipment for the project. JE Dunn says the most critical pick to-date was a steel beam that weighed 5,296lbs. Materials and equipment are typically lifted 100ft to 200ft above grade. The crane will be used through the end of 2011 for the exterior masonry restoration.

Oil and gas is keeping Louisiana busy. At least 60 drilling rigs are working, just in the area around De Soto Parish.

Just south of Shreveport, DC Norton, part of J & M Premier Services, used a Link-Belt 138 HSL and 218 HSL to picked a 150ft, 150,000lb derrick and load it on a truck bound for the next site. The higher capacity 218 HSL picked the “A-leg” end because it was heavier and required a longer radius.

The cranes moved several million pounds of iron to a new site and then erected it in just two days. To keep up with this rapid pace, the DC Norton crew can dismantle the 218 HSL in 45 minutes or less with no assist crane and move it in only three truckloads.

A Manitowoc 16000 is helping construct a seawall in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. The seawall will reclaim land for the construction of the PEI Convention Center, and the project is being overseen by local general contractor Bert & MacKay Construction.

The crane is owned and operated by Irving Equipment, the project’s pile-driving subcontractor, and was initially used to drive sheet piling that forms the base of the seawall. While typical pile driving in marine applications might require a barge-mounted crane, the size and capacity of the 16000 allow it to work on land, operating at radii of between 125ft and 180ft. For the pile driving, the crane worked with 247ft of main boom, a wind tip attachment and a vibratory-hammer to drive the piles.

The crane is also being used to help another subcontractor install whalers, the cross beams that support the seawall. The crane arrived on site in late May and will stay on the project until mid-August.

A Kobelco CK1000 crawler crane is being used to upgrade power lines near the Alafia River. Four circuits are being replaced and a fifth added.

Workers sent to add the new circuits discovered the old lines were deteriorating with age and would need to be replaced. Tampa Bay Marine hired Sims Crane to help pull down the aging four-legged self-supporter towers.

The crawler crane, operating from a barge, maneuvered the 200ft boom to take down 1,000lb sections of the structure. The towers will be replaced by monopoles, each reaching 175ft above the ground, and 50ft underground.

Contractor Waggoner Construction is managing the cast-in-place concrete work on a four-storey addition to Chambersburg Hospital in Pennsylvania. A Potain HDT 80, with a 15ft by 15ft footprint, is being used to lift materials including gang forms, lumber, rebar and structural steel.

The crane has been on the project since March 1 and is expected to work through the end of August. The Potain HDT 80 is a 6.6USt capacity self-erecting crane. Its maximum working radius is 147.6ft and maximum hook height is 112.2ft.

Also on the job is a Grove RT650E rough terrain crane that Waggoner Construction is renting from Stephenson Equipment. The 50USt crane is primarily unloading rebar from trucks that arrive at the job site.

Tampa Bay, Florida

A Kobelco CK1000 crawler crane is being used to upgrade power lines near the Alafia River. Four circuits are being replaced and a fifth added. Workers sent to add the new circuits discovered the old lines were deteriorating with age and would need to be replaced.

Tampa Bay Marine hired Sims Crane to help pull down the aging four-legged self-supporter towers. The crawler crane, operating from a barge, maneuvered the 200ft boom to take down 1,000lb sections of the structure.

The towers will be replaced by monopoles, each reaching 175ft above the ground, and 50ft underground.

Liebherr crawler working hard on wind farm

Tower trade

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