Hospital Board takes another step toward renovations

After over a month of serious deliberation over plans to the new hospital Master Building Plan, the architectural firm Erdman presented their updated plans for facility renovation to the hospital board.

The Tuesday night meeting was highly anticipated because it was a crucial next step in the facility renovation process; after six different designs for renovation were presented to the board over a month ago, the members picked one design and asked Erdman to draw up a number of options based around the plans.

The design the board had approved during the last board meeting was a joint renovation and new construction affair that planned new construction to be undertaken on the facility’s present lot, not crossing East Arapahoe as Erdman had suggested.

Tim Casey, Vice-President of Architecture at the firm, which specializes in medical facilities, presented the board with three options Tuesday night. The three options were quite similar in the regard that all new construction to the facility would take place on the southwest corner of the facility, between the hospital, emergency room, and East Arapahoe Street.

The only differences between the plans is the way the new facility was constructed; one plan had a single floor facility in that space, one had a two-story facility, and one had a single floor with a basement in which facilities would be constructed.

Although Casey originally thought the second and third options (a two-story facility and a single floor with a basement) would be the cheapest options, after extensive research they found that the single-story facility would be the least expensive by far.

Not only would the single-story facility be less expensive, members of the board present agreed that the single-story facility with 13 inpatient rooms, an emergency room, trauma rooms, exam rooms and a common area would greatly increase the efficiency of the facility.

This plan would feature extensive renovations to the present hospital facility, in which food service, imaging, pharmacy, lab, administrative and other less-critical departments would be placed.

Additional parking for the facility is planned to be across East Arapahoe Street, and a new path for ambulance drop-offs would further serve to make the hospital more efficient.

Although nothing is yet set in stone, the price of proposed renovations was somewhat higher than expected by the board.

Although new construction of the facility would come in at just over $10 million, renovations to the present facility were predicted to cost up to $5 million, bringing the total proposed cost of the hospital to $15,816,243. Casey was quick to warn the board that the $5 million price tag for renovations was a “worst case scenario” designed to prevent overages if construction was started. A formal building assessment has not been completed by the firm, meaning that the total cost of renovations is difficult to predict. The process would, however, be complicated by the presence of asbestos in the current facility, which is over half a century old.

The board discussed the plans extensively during the meeting, and although no action was taken, representatives from Erdman will present their first formal plans for renovation mid-February in a meeting similar to the two that have taken place in the past on the subject.