The Proton Project

Shands Site Will Be Only Aboveground Proton Therapy Facility in the World

Protons. High-energy neutrons. Low-energy neutrons. Electron scatter. They're all part of the Proton Therapy and Research Facility project for the University of Florida's College of Medicine at Shands Jacksonville Medical Center.

By Scott Judy

Tom Vroegop is fired up about his latest assignment. The project manager for Perry-McCall Construction of Jacksonville calls it "the coolest project I've worked on in a long time" and "definitely beyond the limits of normal construction."

His excitement is understandable. Perry-McCall has joint-ventured with Charles Perry Construction of Gainesville, Fla., to build a $28 million, 90,000-sq.-ft. Proton Therapy and Research Facility for the University of Florida's College of Medicine. Located at the Shands Jacksonville Medical Center, the facility will be the third one in the United States and one of only about 20 proton-therapy centers in the world.

Additionally, it will be the only structure of its type anywhere to be mostly aboveground. Typically these centers have their treatment areas below grade, due to the fact that the greatest amount of radiation is located here. This UF project has all but the lowest parts of its treatment areas above grade.

The facility will provide proton cancer treatment and will be used for cancer therapy research. Proton beams reportedly can be used to achieve superior dose distributions compared to other methods.

Despite how "cool" it may be, the project has its share of frustrations for Vroegop.

"This project is a concrete and mechanical/electrical nightmare," he said. "You're talking about really seriously high-tech equipment that's going in there. It's not something you do every day."

Radiation Shielding

Then again, Vroegop just has to build the facility. Jim McMillen, project manager for Tsoi Kobus & Associates of Cambridge, Mass., had to design it.

While TKA has designed other proton facilities, this project's aboveground nature has created additional complexities, especially in the most critical area of radiation shielding. Originally intended to be underground, preconstruction geotechnical surveys revealed "very muddy" substrate conditions that wouldn't surrender to conventional dewatering systems.

"We had actually gone a good bit down the road designing the building as a below-grade facility when we got [this] geotechnical information that suggested that wouldn't be the thing to do," McMillen said. "We had to redesign the whole building at grade."

That was a problem because these facilities typically utilize the surrounding underground to enhance radiation shielding. By bringing the facility aboveground, the building's concrete walls would become entirely responsible for the shielding, making McMillen's interaction with San Francisco-based shielding consultant Dale Dexheimer - one of only about five people in the country qualified to do the necessary calculations - even more complicated than usual.

"I have a college-level understanding of nuclear physics, but it's far more complicated than I ever dreamed," McMillen said. With the radiation shielding, "You can never anticipate the next complication," he added.

"Just when I think we have a problem licked, he'll say, 'Well, you didn't think of the low-energy neutrons.' And I'll say, 'Yeah, I'll have to take care of the low-energy neutrons.' There's the high-energy neutrons, the low-energy neutrons, the protons, the electron scatter and all of this stuff that you have to be concerned with."

Mostly, though, bringing the building aboveground meant the walls had to be thickened significantly. While most below-grade proton facilities have maximum wall thicknesses of about 6 ft., the Jacksonville project's thickest walls range from 9 to as much as 14 ft. The thickest walls are adjacent to the cyclotron - which produces the proton beam - in the northeast corner of the building.

Wall thicknesses also vary according to the amount of mechanical or electrical conduit contained in a certain section.

"One conduit running through it is not a big deal," McMillen said. "If you take two of those conduits and line them up, they take enough out of the wall that we have to take that into consideration. Everything that penetrates the concrete is going to compromise it a little, and you have to determine at what point you're compromising it significantly."

Vroegop said the coordination of the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems "takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. You've got to have everybody on the same page, at the same time."

The lead subs Vroegop mentioned are W.W. Gay Mechanical and Miller Electric, both of Jacksonville.

Along with the increased thickness, the walls are being constructed with a higher-density concrete mix than is typically used in the area, with granite aggregate added for this purpose. Florida Rock Industries of Jacksonville is supplying the concrete.

Building It

Perry-McCall is self-performing the concrete work, which should begin for the walls by mid-May. Vroegop said that, going in, the company anticipated having to construct these walls in one massive, multiple-day pour totaling about 12,000 cu. yds. But that will not be the case.

"We had originally thought of a four-day, continuous pour, where there wouldn't be any breaks," he said. "But we've kind of gotten away from that because now we have some vertical joints we can do between the pours."

Instead, Vroegop anticipates breaking up the 12,000 yds. of concrete into 10 to 15 pours.

Currently, Perry-McCall is still trying to overcome the first challenge of "getting out of this hole in the ground," referring to the building's "gantry" area where the cyclotron and various pieces of equipment related to the proton beam are to be located.

Here, after Case Atlantic of Clearwater installed the building's 123 caissons, the project team then excavated an additional 20 ft. down around the caissons. The caissons are then cut off to this lower level, and a series of slabs are poured on top - a mud slab, followed by an 18-in. reinforced mat slab.

"The thick walls will sit on top of those caissons," Vroegop said. The gantries then top out about 20 ft. from ground level. Hatch openings will be included at the top of the gantry area, through which equipment supplier Ion Beam Applications of Belgium eventually will deliver the equipment.

The completion date for the entire project is Jan. 8, 2006 - 24 months from the main project start date - but the first major milestone for Perry-McCall/Charles Perry is to complete the gantry area by spring 2005.

IBA will require approximately 10 months to install the facility's equipment in time for the project's overall completion.

"Our real critical [deadline] is to get these gantries online, and get the IBA folks moved in," Vroegop said.

Even though this project is different from most, McMillen also sees similarities.

"Almost everything here is just an application of common sense," he said. "It's at a very elevated plane, but there's no real magic in it. It's essentially just good practice applied to unusual circumstances."

Proton Therapy and Research Facility Project Team:

Owner: University of Florida College of Medicine
Construction Manager: Perry-McCall/Charles Perry Constructors LLC
Architect: Tsoi Kobus & Associates, Cambridge, Mass.
Architect Affiliate: Rink Reynolds Diamond Fisher, Jacksonville
Structural Engineer: McNamara Salvia Inc., Boston
Mechanical/Electrical/Plumbing Engineer: BR+A, Boston.
Civil Engineer: Harbor Engineering, a division of Berryman Henigar, Jacksonville
Concrete Supplier: Florida Rock Industries, Jacksonville
Electrical Contractor: Miller Electric, Jacksonville
Mechanical Contractor: W.W. Gay Mechanical, Jacksonville

Useful Sources:

For more information on this project, please visit:

http://www.perry-mccall.com/Portfolio.htm
http://www.ufspace.ufl.edu/pm/web/viewprj.jsp?prj=1046