With fir tree and a flag, final beam placed at Geisinger cancer center

PLAINS TWP. — An evergreen tree on one side, an American flag on the other, and scores of signatures from Geisinger employees on every flat surface, the ceremonial final steel beam soared into an overcast sky, past a banner with pictures of health care workers shaped to form the word “HOPE,” and into place Wednesday at the Henry Cancer Center of Geisinger Wyoming Valley.

“This is a connection,” Marjorie Marquart said shortly before the beam floated into place, aptly connecting two vertical beams in the frame of the expanding cancer center named after her parents Frank and Dorothea. “It connects our past to our present, our present to our future. … and it connects me to my past.” She spoke of how much her father wanted a state of the art cancer treatment center in Wyoming Valley, and how the $80 million project will fulfill that dream.

Geisinger announced plans for the expansion on Valentine’s Day last year, just a month before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, prompting the closing of schools and business and stopping or slowing many construction project — a fact brought up throughout the comments by three Geisinger executives.

The pandemic “Changed the way we work.It also changed the way we live and love. We learned to smile with our eyes,” Geisinger Northeast Chief Administrative Officer Ron Beer said. “I’m thrilled to place the final steel beam on our largest expansion project since 2008.”

“Last year was a real challenge,” President and CEO Jaewon Ryu said. “The fact that the building has gone forward is a testament to the persistence, spirit and culture of the people in Northeast Pennsylvania.”

Through most of the remarks the beam sat in the distance, almost invisible because the white coat of paint blended with white plastic road barriers that it sat upon and that stood behind it. Geisinger Cancer Institute Chair Rajiv Panikkar pointed out one distinctive feature, a small fir tree clamped on top of the beam, noting it was a symbol of the hope the center is intended to bring.

“Our goal is to maximize the quality of care in our community, and this is the physical manifestation of that.”

The project is adding 92,500 square feet to the existing 30,000 square feet, creating a new lobby entrance, an 18-bed inpatient unit to serve bone marrow transplant patients or those with complicated blood cancers, and flexible room designs to adapt to a patient’s specific needs. The addition is expected to be completed in the spring of 2022, with renovations to the existing section done by spring of 2024.

Marquart mentioned a fund drive she is leading that has already raised $2 million in community support. Donations can be made geisinger.org/HCC.

Once the beam reached its destination some five stories above the ground, two workers guided it in place, secured it, and proved it was solidly set when one worked his way around the flag to the center of the beam and unhitched the rigging, standing upright, feet on each side of the lower flange, waving the crane away — or maybe waving hello to spectators still hanging around far below.