Scissor lifts manufactured by JLG Industries Inc. have dominated much of the work performed by aerial work platforms at the $45-million Red Rose Commons site in Lancaster, PA, as a new shopping mall takes shape. Red Rose Commons features 13 major chain stores, among them Home Depot, Circuit City, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority, OfficeMax, Pep Boys, Hollywood Video and Weis Supermarkets.
Boyd Nelson is superintendent and project manager for Perry Construction Group Inc., an Erie, PA-based general contractor which is managing this project out of its Rockville, MD, office. According to Nelson, scissor lifts have been his subcontractors’ primary product of choice for jobs that require getting up in the air. These scissor lifts, and boom lifts as required, have all been rented from a Cleveland Brothers distributorship in nearby Harrisburg.
“Ninety percent of the lifts used in the construction of this mall have been scissor lifts,” Nelson said. “They afford workers the platform space and self-propelled mobility that greatly increase time savings and productivity. Boom lifts have been used for occasional needs — for up-and-over applications that often come after portions of construction are complete — but it is scissor lifts that have been used much more frequently.”
As a result of the considerable time savings and productivity gains that JLG scissor lifts and boom lifts have supplied to the construction of Red Rose Commons, Nelson has seen the mall site blossom quickly. “We started March 23 this past spring, and expect to be finished October 1. In part, keeping to that construction schedule has been due to a high level of time savings and productivity — some of it supplied by the widespread use here of JLG scissor lifts.”
Electrical contractor C.M. High Inc., Myerstown, PA, mainly employed JLG model 2646 E series scissor lifts to install wiring, Nelson noted, a model also used by many other subcontractors. At warehouse-type stores such as Home Depot, Circuit City and PetsMart, the entire wiring installation is in the ceiling.
“Everything was overhead, and those electricians lived in scissor units eight hours a day — many of them fashioned a makeshift workbench out of plywood to create a wire-cutting surface,” he said. “With scissors lifts, there is no repetitive, up-and-down for the worker like there is with ladders or scaffolding, nor do you have the safety concerns you experience with ladders or scaffolding — OSHA issues we all have to consider.”
George Boyer & Sons, a Harrisburg-based mechanical/hvac contractor, also favored scissor lifts in order to run gas piping, water lines and cut openings in various roofs for drains and 8-in. (20 cm) PVC, Nelson added. This contractor’s personnel also spent much of the day aloft in these lifts; many were the JLG model 33RTS, four-wheel drive units.
The steel erectors for the mall — Sharp Steel, Harwood, MD — used scissor lifts to erect steel and bar joists, as well as bridge angles. “Using a scissor lift saved them from having one of their workers crawl around the overhead joists to do the required welding, while tied off with a safety rope,” he explained. On occasion, Sharp also used a boom lift to make a welded connection.
In a store such as the 116,000-sq.-ft. (10,777 sq m) Home Depot, R.A.W. Painting Contractors, Lancaster, PA, had the considered the task of painting all the exposed deck. “They lined up six scissor lifts in the morning, and went at the job like gangbusters,” said Bill Holloway, superintendent for Perry Construction Group. “And by using scissor lifts, they eliminated the need for tower scaffolding.”
Southeastern Painting Contractors, Jacksonville, NC, did the same on Circuit City and PetsMart facilities — both 30,000-sq.-ft. (2,787 sq m) buildings.
The drywall contractors for Red Rose Commons — Rock & Metal Systems, from Quarryville, PA — put scissor lifts to work for both personnel and material handling purposes as they erected steel studs and drywall separators, and finished with spackling and sanding.
Thesen Specialty Contractors, Carlisle, PA, applied caulking to all the interior and exterior masonry joints in mall structures using scissor lifts and, when necessary, boom lifts. For Thesen employees, using scissor lifts not only eliminated the use of time-consuming ladders and scaffolding, it also avoided a great deal of bending and twisting — and saved back problems, Nelson added.
Scissor lifts such as those from JLG Industries help subcontractors cut time and speed construction in many ways on a new site, making them indispensable for the “growing” of a Red Rose Commons retail mall, or many other large construction projects.
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