NEOMED’s Topping Tree Marks Construction Progress

Oct. 15, 2019

If you’ve recently admired the construction in front of campus, you may have also done a double take.

Why is a tree standing atop a steel beam in the front corner of the soon-to-be medical office building and academic learning center?

We did some investigating and it turns out, there’s significance to NEOMED’s newest pine tree.

Northeast Ohio Medical University Director of Campus Operations Dale Hluch explains, “These are known as topping trees. They celebrate the completion of the skeleton of a building structure. If the building is a skyscraper, the evergreen is attached to the top beam as it is hoisted, a signal that the building has reached its final height.”

Students from Bio-Med Science Academy finished signed the final beam, then it, along with the pine tree, was placed at the top of the structure for the next phase of construction.