What does it take to reach 100? As part of our 100th anniversary celebration, we’re posting a piece of Berglund’s history on our blog each day for 100 days. Check in each day to learn new tidbits about our company, win prizes based on your Berglund knowledge, and, most of all, to help us celebrate.

Don’t forget- today is the last day to answer the latest Berglund 101 question and snag a $15 Starbucks card!

Spotlight on Berglund’s Work: Construction

Rogers Park Montessori School

Operating two campuses for its students was less than ideal, and Rogers Park Montessori School dreamed of consolidating into one central campus. School officials identified property for the new campus, but the site posed challenges of its own. A former train switching yard, the property was extremely long and narrow — 864 feet long and just 124 feet wide. It also sat next to elevated railroad tracks and several businesses, making the logistics even tighter. On top of it all, Rogers Park Montessori had a tight budget.

The school tapped Berglund for construction, and Berglund got to work figuring out how to best work within the school’s parameters. We developed plans for excavating that wouldn’t disturb Rogers Park Montessori’s new neighbors, and designed an economical sewer system for the uniquely shaped site. To keep the school’s pocketbook flush, we used value engineering to develop a series of budgets that identified ways to save, including using precast panel exteriors instead of masonry. Those suggestions ultimately shaved $2 million off of the school’s original $8.6 million cost.

Now all of Rogers Park Montessori’s students are together in the school’s 47,000-square-foot building on Chicago’s far North Side. Rogers Park Montessori was even able to add 7^th and 8^th graders, thanks to the additional space the school provides. The new school can house up to 350 students and features 17 classrooms, a library, a lunchroom, a gym, a green roof and more than 2 acres of green space, including ample room for an organic garden, in accordance with parents’ wishes.

What does it take to reach 100? As part of our 100th anniversary celebration, we’re posting a piece of Berglund’s history on our blog each day for 100 days. Check in each day to learn new tidbits about our company, win prizes based on your Berglund knowledge, and, most of all, to help us celebrate.

Spotlight on Berglund’s Work: Construction

Center for Advanced Clinical Studies, The Methodist Hospitals

The future has come to northwest Indiana – and it lives at the Center for Advanced Clinical Studies at The Methodist Hospitals. The 96,000-square-foot center houses a Gamma Knife®, the first of its kind in the region. The medical device is used to treat brain tumors, malformed blood vessels, nerve problems and other conditions typically treated with surgery, offering an alternative that’s faster and less painful and requires less recovery time.

The hospital hired Berglund to build the $30 million center, a project that demanded rigorous safety measures because of the proximity to radiation-producing equipment. Berglund spent 15 months constructing the center, which features mechanical systems and independent offices in the basement and the Gamma Knife, linear accelerators and an in-depth X-ray machine surrounded by lead-lined walls on the first floor. The completed facility snagged an award in 2003 for Project of the Year from the Northwest Indiana Construction Advancement Foundation.