Brick by brick, old Parkland is slowly coming down

Posted: 4/16/2024

Hospital had served Dallas County residents for more than 60 years

It is just before dawn when Eric Velasquez reports for demolition duty at the old Parkland Memorial Hospital. As a member of the Ecosystems crew charged with monitoring the air quality in and around the construction site, Velasquez is one of seven people who find themselves in a rather unique position. He is working alongside the crew who is tearing down the hospital where he was born.

Velasquez, who had not been back to the hospital since his birth in 2003, said he had a chance to see the area of the hospital where he was born, but at times "it makes me sad that my kids will never see it."

For Julian Guerrero, a safety manager with The Beck Group, one of the construction groups working on the demolition site, it is bittersweet seeing the structure come down piece by piece. For more than two decades, Guerrero was with Grand Prairie EMS and spent many hours in Parkland's Emergency Department.

"I remember seeing the canopy that covered the ambulance bays come down and I kept thinking about how many times I had stood under it when we brought patients to Parkland. I remember days when all the bays were filled and the ambulances were two deep," he said. "And seeing parts of the ER going away … it brought back a lot of memories."

For the last 22 months architects, engineers and contractors have been working diligently to prepare and plan the demolition of the former hospital. After eight months of selective demolition, hazardous material abatement and interior demolition, the building's superstructure demolition is noticeable to those driving past the Harry Hines location.

With demolition well underway, the landscape is changing with every load of the excavator bucket. Of more than 14,000 truckloads of material which is expected to be removed from the site, 1,656 have been removed through the end of March, equating to 28,553 tons of debris.

It has been a painstaking task to remove the structure that has stood tall since 1954. With connections to four buildings belong to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Children's Medical Center and to the ER garage tunnel, the buildings had to be separated floor by floor, thus making an implosion impossible.

If a building can be resilient in its purpose to serve the community, Parkland is an example.

"I have seen a lot of buildings where you pull off one brick and the others just fall," Guerrero said. "But not Parkland. It was built with a lot of heavy steel and it has taken some work to come down. It has served its purpose well."

But coming down it is.

"I have been at Parkland 35 years and spent the first 25 in the old building. This prolonged demolition process has been painful," said Judy Herrington, MSN, RN, senior vice president of Nursing for Medicine Services. "I check the progress every few days to see if my office on the 10th floor is still standing but so many familiar landmarks are gone, the ER, the SICU. The main lobby. I had some of the best times of my nursing career in that building."

Sheila DePaola, MSN, RN, a nursing operations specialist at Parkland has watched the changing landscape daily. Most days DePaola rides the TRE to Parkland and walks by the demolition site. On those days she opts to drive, parking on the roof of the old ER garage gives a bird's eye view of the site.

"You cannot appreciate how quickly it is coming down. It takes your breath away," said DePaola. "I think about the patients, and friends we made in that building. Working in there made me the person I am today. One day we are going to wake up and it will be all gone. It will just be a memory."

For Grady Portis, Sr. the building has significant meaning. Not only was he born in Parkland, but it has been his work home for the last 24 years. As one of Parkland's Life Safety Coordinators, Portis was one of the last employees stationed in the former hospital.

"It's a little sad that the building is coming down," Portis said. "There's so much history. I can remember my grandmother bringing me to the Emergency Department when I was just a kid and had gotten hurt. Before the building was completely closed off, I went up to the Labor & Delivery area and thought 'this is where my life began!'"

But he, too, acknowledges that the building was no longer suitable for contemporary healthcare. The deterioration of its mechanical, plumbing, electrical and life safety systems, and the high cost of ongoing electrical power consumption even when it was in its "mothballed" state led Parkland leaders to make the fiscally sound decision to demolish the building. Currently the future use of the land has not been determined.

Still, like many, Herrington says she hates "to see it come down but I am looking forward to the next phase of our campus growth. Parkland keeps evolving and that is exciting to be a part of."

For more information about Parkland, visit www.parklandhealth.org.

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