Amid piles of heaped up stone and dirt, and over the whirring of saws and banging pipes, Diane Seloff, project director of the medical center's new 100 Oaks mall facility, asserts that construction is on time and all is going according to schedule.

Although debris and building materials currently line the white, cement walls of what will be the main concourse, Seloff said quick progress is being made on the building every day.

"Every time I come out here, it looks different," said Seloff. "Every day I see changes. We used to have 4-by-4-foot skylights, and then I came in last Thursday and they had ripped them out and rebuilt them to be 10-by-20 feet."

Construction at 100 Oaks began last April and has continued on a tight schedule. The first set of clinics, mainly support services like ancillary labs and imaging facilities, will move in February 2009.

According to Seloff, before the mall opens to patients in late February, the clinics will be opening every two weeks, starting with an OBGYN and a women's imaging center.

Sean Farrel, of Steve and Batten, the contractor hired for interior work, said the rapid speed of the construction makes this project a once in a lifetime opportunity.

"Four months ago there was nothing in there, just three football fields of empty space," said Farrel.

Roughly 250 construction workers work on the site daily, according to Farrel.

Seloff said one of the biggest difficulties has been coordinating between the interior contractor and the exterior contractor.

"A lot of the work, that we would like to happen sequentially, is happening in parallel," said Seloff.

Although, according to Seloff, the medical center expects the clinics will help boost business at the mall's retail stores, 100 Oaks has seen a decline in the number of shoppers, which is mainly attributed to the construction.

"People think that because of the construction the mall is closed and because of that retail volume has dropped," Seloff said.

However, despite drops in shoppers, the Pediatric Rehabilitation Clinic that relocated to 100 Oaks back in February has seen an increase in patients since moving from the medical center location. Erik Hamnes, director of Pediatric Rehabilitation, said the new clinic is more convenient for families because there is less traffic and more parking.

"We have seen an increase of patients who are on time, there are less no shows, and people are telling us how much more accessible it is," said Hamnes.

Terri Brown, an employee at the Pediatric Rehabilitation clinic, said the move was much needed, and that the clinic now had access to more treatment rooms and new equipment.