Traffic & Transit
Worcester Closing Downtown Street For Field Hospital Construction
Crews will begin setting up the DCU Center coronavirus field hospital on Thursday.
WORCESTER, MA — Construction on a coronavirus field hospital at the DCU Center in downtown Worcester may cause some traffic delays in the coming weeks.
Starting Thursday, Worcester will shut down Commercial Street between Exchange Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the police department said Wednesday afternoon.
The field hospital should be open by Dec. 6 with enough room for about 215 people. The facility will provide care for people who are recovering from the virus so that nearby St. Vincent and UMass Memorial hospitals can care for sicker patients.
Worcester police said Commercial Street will reopen to traffic once the field hospital is all set up.
UMass Memorial Health Care will run the field hospital, and is trying to hire people for about a dozen roles from nursing assistants to social workers. The hospital will be a 24-7 operation.
