• Posted: June 25, 2019
• Safety

When planning a mission-critical, 300,000 square-foot data center in Cook County, more goes into it than just selecting the parcel of land. For the many contractors involved in bringing a project of this scale to life, it takes the right partnerships.

“The most important part of a project like this is picking the right partners,” said John Quigley of Turner Construction. “It’s an electrical job. This is a building full of electrical work and we have to surround ourselves with the best in the business.”

According to Turner Construction, the general contractor working on the top-secret building in the Chicagoland suburbs, Continental Electric was just who they were looking for.

“It was absolutely intentional that we selected Continental,” Quigley said. “There are only a few in the area who can handle a job like this.”

Continental has done roughly 50 data center projects in the past, but what makes this one so unique is the sheer scale of the project. With over 200 electricians on site daily, the logistics of providing the right equipment needed to meet mission-critical standards are enough to keep some Continental employees up at night.

“Mission-critical has other qualifications that other jobs don’t because of the whole process of commissioning and building for a product that can’t lose power,” said Rick Marder, Director Construction Operations, at Continental.

Mission-critical means that the project can never lose power once it’s up and running. The data center’s information is so critical to the success of the company and its customers that it must be online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

“The design has redundancy built into it more so than a regular project,” said Marder. “There are at least two other sources of power inside the building.”

Those other sources of energy typically come from generators and that adds another layer of sophistication to the project. Of the 200-plus electricians Continental has on site, 40 of them will be electrical supervisors trained to do this type of work. It’s the biggest job Continental is currently working on and the man power and skill set is critically important to the project’s success.

“This is where Local 134 comes through for us,” said Steve Witz, Vice President of Continental Electric. “We really depend on them to provide this quality labor.”

Powering Chicago electricians are trained to handle any type of project while keeping safety at the forefront of their minds. With such a tight timeline to get the first phase of this project completed by February 2020, sometimes safety can be put in jeopardy. That’s not the case at this site.

“This customer brings such a focus on safety and they’ve made it their number one priority,” said Quigley. “They have pushed all of us to get safer and think about safety even more than we already do.”

“When people come to union sites vs. non-union sites, they are blown away by the workmanship that is done,” Marder said. “Local 134 has a training program that allows that skillset and workmanship to shine.”