Rochester — In the heart of this city’s downtown, workers pour concrete into a massive 14-foot pit.

The concrete will create thick walls for a proton beam cancer therapy center, the latest Mayo Clinic construction project that has downtown Rochester in the midst of a construction boom.

Cranes mark the skyline as the clinic builds the facility and expands Saint Marys Hospital, projects that will help the medical center capture the growing share of older patients.

By Elizabeth Baier
Minnesota Public Radio News

U.S. Census data show the number of Minnesotans age 65 and older will increase by 40 percent in the next 10 years, shifting demographics that already are evident. Last year, such patients accounted for nearly half of the 1.1 million patients visiting the Mayo Clinic and Mayo Clinic Health System.

As more patients visit Mayo Clinic each year, their presence creates huge ripple effect in Rochester’s economy, boosting business for a variety of businesses — from hotels and restaurants to taxi services and car rentals.

But the immediate effect could well be on the construction trades.

About 65 workers are working on the cancer center, a number that will grow to as many as 250 workers as construction peaks later this year, said Joe Toronto, construction project superintendent for Gilbane and Knuston Construction.

“By May of next year, this has to be finished space,” Toronto said, [with] “fire suppression, security, lights, 100 percent done for Hitachi to show up with their equipment from Japan.”

By equipment, he means pencil beam scanning. By 2015, the center will allow Mayo Clinic to offer cancer patients a more precise form of proton therapy that allows for greater control over radiation doses. The treatment times are shorter and there are fewer side effects than conventional radiation therapy.

Clinic officials studied the technology for seven years before bringing the proton center to Rochester and funding for the $188 million project will come from Mayo’s capital budget and generous benefactor support.

“It’s a huge draw,” Toronto said of Mayo Clinic. “It brings people to live down here. Our safety director has left Minneapolis and relocated to Rochester to be part of the Rochester scene.”