As work continues on the Jewel & Jim Plumb Heart Center at Mercy, the next phase of construction will involve the placement of a skywalk over 8th Avenue SE. When completed, the skywalk will directly connect the Heart Center to level 1 of the hospital.
Beginning Mon., Oct. 3, and lasting several weeks, skywalk construction and related work will result in some modifications to traffic patterns on 8th Avenue SE:

• Eastbound lanes of 8th Avenue SE between 8th Street and 10th Street SE will be closed first, reducing traffic to two lanes with access to Mercy from 8th Avenue until Thursday, Oct. 20.
• On Thursday, Oct. 20, through Monday, Oct. 24, all lanes will be closed on 8th Avenue between 8th Street and 10th Street SE. That weekend, large cranes are scheduled to hoist the skywalk into place. 8th Avenue will reopen as normal again on Monday, Oct. 24.

As these changes to traffic patterns occur, detours will be marked. A section of 8th Avenue will always remain open for ambulance access to Mercy’s Emergency Room.
Road closures will occur again in the future and periodically throughout the construction of the skywalk over the course of the next several weeks to months.
Mercy broke ground on the Heart Center in Sept. 2021. It’s designed to be Linn County’s largest and most comprehensive such facility, offering integrated, patient-centered care and state-of-the-art technology.
This unique facility, scheduled to open in mid-2023, will bring heart specialists and coordinated heart services all under one roof and within a single center as Mercy continues to grow and develop the area’s leading heart program.
Funding for the facility was made possible through a generous estate gift from the late Jewel and Jim Plumb of Cedar Rapids.
Ryan Companies US, Inc., designed and is building the Heart Center at Mercy.