100 Moments

10:10 10.10: Anatomy of a Moment

Cedar Avenue and East 100th Street 
Cleveland Clinic main campus

Cleveland
10:10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time

The glass panels arrive on the bed of a semitruck. Each panel weighs 1,300 pounds. More than 700 panels will encase two new research buildings and the skyway that connects them in the heart of the Cleveland Innovation District. 

The structures will be home to the Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak Global Center for Pathogen Research and Human Health, the largest research initiative in Cleveland Clinic’s history. All told, 296,000 square feet of state-of-the-art research space will be added, including labs, offices and classrooms. 

Construction won’t be completed until 2026. But Scott Miklic, a superintendent with the Gilbane Building Company, can visualize the results now. Where other people see holes in the ground, he sees new buildings. “I can just picture the whole thing in my head,” he says. “I enjoy seeing something come from nothing.” 

When he was a boy, his stepfather put a hammer in his hand and put him to work, building houses. At the tender age of 10, Scott was flying roof trusses into place. 

Today he’ll choreograph a more intricate dance. With workers communicating by radio, a crane will hoist each panel into position, ready to be set in clips in the structural concrete to create a seamless wall of reflective glass. 

Soon enough, researchers will look out these windows as they look for scientific breakthroughs. And beyond the city views, they’ll envision exciting possibilities. Just like Scott.

Photograph by Don Gerda