One Million Bricks on the Wall: Local 3 NY Members Build Erie County Medical Center One Brick at a Time

JOURNAL: ISSUE 3 - 2012

Excerpts of this article by Tom Campbell published July 9, 2012 are reprinted with permission of WNY Labor Today.com.

Just under one million is the number of brick that [members of]  Bricklayers Local 3 New York will have eventually [installed] once construction of the Erie County Medical Center's (ECMC) $103 million Long-Term Care Facility on Buffalo's east side finishes up sometime this fall. Right now, they're a little more than half-way through and their quality craftsmanship is turning heads and catching eyes from both ECMC Officials and those from LP Ciminelli, Incorporated – the Buffalo-headquartered union construction management firm overseeing the overall ECMC Project.

"We're very proud that the new ECMC Health Campus is being built 'for' Western New Yorkers 'by' Western New Yorkers," said ECMC Chief Executive Officer Jody Lomeo. "From the building of the new [transplant center] to the new Long-Term Care Facility, we continue to be impressed by the quality of construction by the men and women of the skilled trades. Quality and excellence have always been the hallmark of ECMC. That same commitment from those building these new facilities is evident every day."

Mike Zacher is Senior Project Manager on the ECMC Project for LP Ciminelli: "At the pace we're going, I think (the Bricklayers) are doing a great job and I'm impressed by the quality of their work."

Ground for the Long-Term Care Facility was broken on ECMC's Grider Street property in July 2011. It's anticipated the facility will open in December 2012. It will replace the 80-year-old Erie County Nursing Home – combining, in one location, existing long-term care beds. The new site is rising beside the new $27 million Regional Center of Excellence for Transplantation & Kidney Care. 

Working alongside [members of] Laborers Local 210 and Operating Engineers Local 17 at the ECMC Project, there are 37 Union Local 3 bricklayers on the job, including 21 employed by BAC signatory contractor Thomas Johnson Construction of Orchard Park. More than 50% of just what Local 3 officials describe as "a shade under one million bricks" are already in place on the Long-Term Care Facility. Its four multi-floor wings encompassing more than 200,000 square feet of space will eventually house nearly 400 residents.

Local 3 NY President Eugene Caccamise recently [visited] the ECMC project and spoke with his members as well as Gary Johnson, a principal with Thomas Johnson Construction.

Joining Caccamise on the site visit were Local 3 Secretary-Treasurer Anthony DiPerna, Vice President Richard Williamson, Training Coordinator Todd Flynn and Field Representative Frank Pietrowski.

"It's a lot of brick and a ton of work for our [members]; they and Johnson are doing a great job." an extremely proud Caccamise told WNYLaborToday.com. "I know (ECMC) is very impressed and it's become a feather in the cap of our contractor, Johnson Construction. This is good for both Buffalo and Erie Counties because it means 'local jobs for local people.'"

WNYLaborToday.com

Over the past year, a new long-term care facility in Buffalo has produced work for a total of 37 Local 3 NY members. Some of those members were photographed with Local 3 officials earlier this summer on the job site: front row, from left, Daniel Thuman, Richard Shaw, Local 3 President Eugene Caccamise, Alfred Cowell, Danny Weeks, Mike Renowden, William T. Smith, Douglas Rowe, David Gleason, John Fox, Joseph Reynolds, Vincent Caggiano, James Ersing, Anthony Kassman, Jeffrey Dombrowski , Richard MacDonald, Secretary-Treasurer Anthony Diperna, Kenny Grover, and Field Representative Frank Pietrowski. Second row, from left: Daniel Clarkson and Brian Connolly.

The Nursing Home and Center are part of a five-year, $150 million Project on ECMC's Health Campus, which when completed will provide good-paying Jobs and health-focused economic development centered in a section of Buffalo that has seen too little of both. The projects, which include demolition of eight buildings on the 65-acre ECMC property, are also supporting hundreds of construction workers' jobs. According to Ciminelli's Zacher, there are 300 construction workers employed on the project. Local 3's Williamson adds that it's his understanding that 90% of the work "is being done Union." 

Caccamise said there's been "ten-percent more hours" worked this year by Union bricklayers in Western New York compared to the same time last year. And, it would appear more is [in the pipeline] with an upcoming "monster" $1.5 billion suburban Rochester shopping mall in Irondequoit, he added.

"There's a lot of work in our area that's getting rolling. Rochester and Buffalo are only 60 miles apart and our Local stretches over twenty-four counties. We have two-thousand members who fill the need" on any construction project across Western New York," Caccamise said.

In Buffalo, according to Williamson, members make just under $50-an-hour, which will increase by another dollar sometime over the next 30 days, he added. "Especially for someone coming out of school (who's interested in the trade), it's a very good rate," Williamson told WNYLaborToday.com.

Caccamise, who also serves as a Regional Vice President on the International Union's Executive Council, took time to credit his officers and staff for the Bricklayers' overall success:  "You can't micro-manage. We've got good people like Rick Williamson here in Buffalo and we have faith in them to make sure our goals are met so we can stay ahead of the curve."

The new facility's 67,700-square-foot ground floor will house the administrative, nursing and business offices, public restrooms, a gift shop and the visitor's lobby, which will double as a multi-purpose gathering space for residents' special events. A café will provide restaurant-style food service for residents, visitors and staff. The Dietary Department includes a kitchen, storage, receiving area, loading dock, dietary staff office and lockers. 

The first floor will feature 51,300 square feet where 66 beds will offer short-term rehabilitation space for patients. These units will differ from those in long-term care in that they offer private bedrooms with smaller living/dining areas, given that most rehab patients prefer to dine in their rooms. Physical and Occupational Therapy Departments will be located on the first floor to reduce transport time.

The second, third and fourth floors, with more than 50,000 square feet per floor, will each  house 12 residents in eight households. Each household will have two private rooms and five semi-private rooms. The semi-private rooms are divided by partitions so that each resident will have his or her own space and window. 

The building will be connected to the existing hospital and to other facilities on campus via a public corridor that will be used to transport nursing home residents in need of medical car, to the new dialysis unit and to ECMC.