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McKamish was the design-assist mechanical contractor for the renovation to the old Ford Building located in Pittsburgh's East Liberty neighborhood.

McKamish was the design-assist mechanical contractor for the renovation to the old Ford Building located in Pittsburgh's East Liberty neighborhood. The building, which is used as a lab building for the Immune Transplant and Therapy Center, has 411,000 square feet available for new lab space, meeting rooms, retail store fronts, a parking garage, 250-plus seat auditorium, a multi-purpose atrium and more. 

Some of the mechanical systems included in this project were fume hoods, snorkels, cage racks, biosafety cabinets, sterilizers and a variety of other specialized equipment. The large modular mechanical penthouse that sits on the roof required extreme coordination between all members of the Project Team to safely and efficiently lift and set it into place. The biggest challenge to this project was navigating the existing conditions in a historic building, as well as the aggressive project schedule. 

The design-assist portion of this project focused heavily on the core and shell installation and the prefabricated penthouse, both logistics and sequence. McKamish was able to come up with a sequence for the penthouse that reduced the schedule of installation in setting the equipment. For the core and shell installation, we were heavily involved in the sizing and location of risers. We prefabricated the risers to drop them in through the ceiling in large sections of assemblies to reduce man power on site and eliminate waste.