Space limited in Downtown Milan!

Casella Autogrù lifts air conditioning units in Downtown Milan using a Liebherr LTM 1350-6.1

Milan, a lively town in the North of Italy and famous for its cathedral and shopping malls, is also one of the biggest Italian business areas. Every day, restructurings and redevelopments are taking place, as the space in the city center and even the metropolean area is tight and limited. Casella Autogrù was therefore tasked to take part in the redevelopment of a skyscraper complex in downtown Milan. The complex consists of seven tower building, mainly used for offices and being closely built together. Casella was instructed to place the air conditioning units on the roof top of a 18 floor skyscraper, therefore a lifting height of 70 meters was needed. Their choice for the task was the LTM 1350-6.1. The weight of the single units to be lifted was announced with 12.5 t.

The main challenge was the limitation of space as the lift took place in the Milan city center. The 350 t crane, installed with the maximum ballast of 100 t, had to be positioned on the center of the roadway. As the road is quite narrow, the outriggers had to be postioned half on

the road an half on the side walk on two different heights. During the setup and lift, the road had to be sealed off – therefore time was the second limiting factor on this job.

The new air conditioning units with their 12.5 t had to be lifted to the 63 meter high rooftop with a radius of 45 meters. Therefore the Y-guying system was needed to support the telescopic boom with the lattice jib attached, a TYVEN configuration. The LTM 1350-6.1 is the smallest crane featuring a Y-guying system.

Arriving first thing in the morning, crane operator Claudio Lozza and his colleagues were really busy to keep the timings during all the job. About eight hours of preparation and two hours with loads on the hook, the day was quite demanding for Claudio, as he explained the job: “The Y-guying system allowed us to benefit from incredible load capacities while guaranteeing reduced dimensions – this was the crucial point during this job. In a nutshell, the Liebherr LTM 1350-6.1 mobile crane is flexible, compact and powerful! Using such a crane for this type of work is really joyful for me." And Claudio is looking forward to the next jobs: “It’s always challenging to operate in metropolitan areas, no matter if you are in the open field, in one of the many industrial plants or in the city center – always a question of timing, traffic and limited space. But with this extrodinary crane, handling gets easy and the work is fun.”

Casella Autogrù, based in Piacenza (about 60 km from Milan), a strategic location from a logistical point of view, was founded in 1960. In the early 90ties, the Villa family took over the management of Casella Autogrù, providing – with commitment, passion and determination – a decisive push towards new and even more ambitious goals: the mobile crane rental business started beside the existing activities of transportation, the assembly of prefabricated structures and the chartering of aerial platforms. The mobile crane fleet was constantly renewed and shortly after taking over the business, the first Liebherr cranes came in.

Today, being in the market for 60 years, Casella Autogrù operates 31 vehicles, including cranes, electric cranes, road tractors as well as support vehicles and operates throughout Italy and Europe. The areas of application are very varied and include, among others, the construction and maintenance of infrastructure at national level, industrial handling of machinery and plants in all major production sectors.