As a crane lifted the final structural beam for Case Western Reserve University’s Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering up into the air Friday afternoon, the rain began to pour down.
But spirits were not dampened. Cheers erupted as the beam—adorned with signatures of construction crew, staff members and other stakeholders and topped with an American flag and an evergreen tree historically present in construction projects—traveled up four stories before being secured into place.
Construction crew members from Discovery Builders—a joint venture among Turner Construction Co., Adrian Maldonado & Associates Inc., Next Generation Construction and the AKA Team—were on site to watch the momentous occasion, known in the industry as a “topping-out ceremony.”
“I want to thank you for doing what you do every day. You do a dangerous job. You’re out here in the cold and the wind and the snow, and I know how hard it is,” Dean Tufts, vice president for campus planning and facilities management, told the crew gathered. “So I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
Crews broke ground on the 189,000-square-foot research and lab space last spring, with an official groundbreaking ceremony held in the fall. The project remains on budget and on time for completion in fall 2026, in line with the university’s bicentennial. The next phase of construction will be to apply the spray-on fire protection to the structural steel, a process that likely will continue through the summer.
When complete, the state-of-the-art research hub will house dedicated research and lab space for 65 principal investigators and their research teams—including students, faculty and staff from the College of Arts and Sciences, Case School of Engineering, the School of Medicine, and selected others.
“You’re not just building a building,” Tufts told the construction crews. “You’re doing big, big things. You’re helping to cure cancer. You’re gonna help vets that don’t have arms take their prosthetics and hold their spouses’ hands.”
Stay up to date on the building’s progress on the ISEB website or by watching the construction livestream online.