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Emergency Command and Control Vehicle at Suburban Collection Showplace. In addition to a rooftop satellite dish, it has 11 work stateions, video teleconference capability, a cellular signal booster and four air condtioners. (Photos: Penelope Carroll/Army Corps of Engineers).
An exhibition hall alongside I-96 where the Novi Home and Garden Show was scheduled this month is gaining a more urgent and significant role.
About 75 Army engineers, Michigan National Guard members and Gilbane Building Co. are erecting a 250-bed "alternate care medical facility" for Covid patients to be transferred from filled-up hospitals -- starting next Monday, if work stays on schedule. The site, which could expand to 1,100 more beds if needed, will be the second Federal Emergency Management Agency field hospital in this area. (The TCF Regional Health Care Center opened downtown Friday.)
The Ascension Michigan health care system will run the site on Grand River Avenue, two miles east of its 259-bed Ascension Providence Hospital on the same throughfare parallel to the nearby highway.
The cancelled landscape and home improvement show is optimistically rebooked for May 29-31 by the Homebuilders Association of Southeastern Michigan, though it can't proceed then either. The state signed a six-month lease and is paying the Showplace $1.32 million a month to use its space, Crain's says.
► Job-seekers: The state accepts applications here for medical, administrative and security positions. "Strong preference will be given to individuals who can give at least a 13-week commitment (minimum three 12-hour shifts per week)."
Compass Group invites applications here for food service, housekeeping and patient service jobs (or text JOB to 75000).
Two more work-in-progress scenes from this weekend are by Penelope Carroll, a public information specialist at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Detroit district:
Each of the 250 curtained patient "pods" will have a hospital bed, medical monitor, table, lamp and chair.
