Steel arrives for building's skeleton

The steel is here. We’ve been waiting for this day for months.

Steel is at the heart of any modern building, and we’re using more than 60 tons of it – 120,000 pounds. A good portion of it will be recycled, but because we have several different suppliers, we can’t say exactly how much.

But if we manage just 10 percent recycled metal, that’ll be 12,000 pounds less iron we have to pull out of the ground and refine. If we get to 25 percent, that’s 30,000 pounds that stays in the earth.

We’ll spend the next several weeks hanging the steel frame of the building. When we’re done, you’ll have a much better idea of what the building will look like.

After that, two things will happen that will hide the steel for the life of the building: We’ll encase it, to make sure it can resist heat.

And we’ll cover the frame in a skin of brick, wood and insulation as we build out the walls, much like your skin covers your bones.