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A new building at the Rose Quarter will boast some serious hang time.

Gig Harbor, Wash.-based Rush Commercial last week broke ground in the Rose Quarter on a new MRI building for Rebound Orthopedic and Neurosurgery Clinic. The structure is designed to occupy limited space in a high-traffic area … and hang over an existing parking garage.

“It’s not the normal hospital setting, which is where those things usually go,” said Mark VanderZanden, creative director for Surround Architecture Inc. “This is next to a concert venue and light rail and all that good stuff.”

Then his team had an idea.

“We just said, ‘What if we put it up in the air?’ ” VanderZanden said. “And they said, ‘I think that could fly … literally.’ We all laughed and then had to figure out how to do it.”

VanderZanden and Surround Architecture executive director Erik Matthews devised the 1,512-square-foot expansion to cantilever approximately 20 feet above a ground-level parking garage adjacent to Rebound’s offices. The tiny room will connect to Rebound via a small sky bridge.

The project team is leaning on beefy engineering and heavy lifting to hang a 14,000-pound magnet (the key ingredient in magnetic resonance imaging) over thin air. Chris DeWald, vice president of construction for Rush Commercial, said the new building will require a 3-foot-thick footing with a double mat of rebar, and 20-foot foundation walls.

With that structure set, crews will put in place the building’s slab – a 14-inch-thick, post-tension concrete deck. The rest of the building will be light-gauge metal framing, structural steel and an EIFS exterior to match the nearby facade.

Rush Commercial, the commercial division of The Rush Cos., has completed several MRI projects; however, DeWald said that because the project site is in the Rose Garden’s loading area, scheduling won’t be simple.

“It’s going to be a challenge working around all the activities there at the Rose Quarter,” DeWald said. “There will be a day when we have to shut down when the circus comes to town.”

Dave Bennett, Rebound’s CEO, said one thing that helped it secure Rush as the contractor was the company’s willingness to open its books on the project. At $1.2 million, it’s probably one of the more expensive additions of its size around. The MRI machine itself costs about $1 million, Bennett said.

“I call it our MRI on stilts,” he said jokingly. “It’s the most complicated MRI that’s ever been put in, probably in the history of the world.”

It will be used by Rebound physicians, who now serve the Trail Blazers, the Winterhawks and Portland State University.