New hospital moving along
The steel framework of the future War Memorial Hospital is well on its way at its Fairview Drive construction site.
The new two-story critical access hospital is slated for completion in April, 2012. The groundbreaking ceremony was held in June.
The facility will offer 24-hour emergency care services, 25 in-patient beds for acute or skilled care and 16 long-term care beds. It will also have expanded emergency and surgical departments, physician offices and upgraded technologies.
Some 60 to 70% of the steel is up, most of the concrete slabs have been poured and the steel decking for the roof and second floor is partially installed, said War Memorial Hospital President Neil McLaughlin last Friday.
Work has begun on storm water pipes, culverts and water lines and roads have been roughed out.
They are on schedule with construction, with a few things moving a little ahead of schedule, he said.
The approximately 87,000 square-foot facility will have a hospital building and a medical building. It will cost around $30 million to build the new facility with the money coming from Valley Health reserves, McLaughlin said.
The construction team includes architects Perkins + Will, construction manager Howard Shockey & Sons, project management-Hammes Company and Valley Engineering Surveying Planning.
Courtyard
The hospital and medical office buildings will be joined by a dietary area
and an outdoor courtyard that will be surrounded by the building but open to the air.
There will be room for four umbrella tables in the courtyard and the rest will be landscaped, McLaughlin said. The Foxglove Garden Club is anxious to work on the landscaping, he said. An activity area with a patio and a wandering garden is planned for the area behind the nursing home.
The entire building will be surrounded by a sidewalk. They plan to mark the roads for how long a distance it is to walk around the building, McLaughlin said. Walking trails may be put in back by the pond.
Roads, entrances
The new hospital address will be 1 Healthy Way,
the private drive which will be in front of the main entrance.
There will be two entrance roads—a campus entrance and a hospital entrance.
The road which will encircle the whole site will be called Campus Drive, McLaughlin said. Sunset Drive goes to the west where there could be senior housing, he said.
Parking
Employee parking will be off Dedication Drive to the left. Public parking will be located in front of the building.
They have around 175 total public parking spots plus employee parking which gives them a total of about 275 parking spaces, McLaughlin said. It’s far more parking than they have now.
The first entrance road will be for employees, deliveries and ambulances, he said. Visitors and drop-off emergency room patients will come to the second entrance off Fairview Drive.
The building will have two main entrances with canopies, McLaughlin said. The left one will be for physician’s offices, cardiac rehab, the nursing home, billing and human resources and the right one for visitors and ambulatory emergency patients.
A third canopy in the rear of the building will be the emergency room entrance for patients brought by ambulance. A helipad behind the facility will have a 135 degree open space for helicopter approach and departure, he said.
Features
Respiratory therapy, radiology and phlebotomy areas will have a home-like feel, McLaughlin said.
The main arc of the hospital building will have alternating patterns of garden space and glass as the entrance. Stone walls in front of the entrance will have seating and lighting and will also serve as safety bollards similar to the ones erected in front of school buildings, he said.
Behind the stone walls will be small decorative bushes and trees. They were hoping to mirror the courthouse stone work and the stone wall they have at the current hospital, McLaughlin said.
Earth tones will be the colors throughout the facility. Textured glass that gives the impression of water will be used in the reception, dining and clinical areas, he said.
Selected areas for stonework and blue-capped desk areas will serve as way-finding markers.
Green design
The new hospital project is designed to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, McLaughlin said.
Site planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance are evaluated with strict standards for environmental sensitivity for this distinction.
Environmental measures include reducing waste during construction, using eco-friendly materials, energy conservation systems and water conservation, McLaughlin said.
Storm water collection ponds, a natural pond and a well will supplement water usage, he said. Rooftop air handler units will be hidden from view by screening.
Progress exciting
McLaughlin was excited about the progress of the construction. He said that this time next year they could be installing new furniture and training staff if contractors were finished and the fire marshal had signed off on the building.
It would take three to four months to get everything ready after construction was over.
By Thanksgiving, the construction plan would be to have full steel erection, decking, curbs and gutters installed, a second floor concrete base and some asphalt roads, he said.
By Christmas, they hope to encase the building in wrap so contractors can continue working on the inside over the winter.
