Homer Alaska - Business

Joining a slew of upcoming hospital remodeling and construction projects, Providence Alaska Medical Center plans to renovate several of its existing facilities and construct a new building on its campus.

The $150 million project, dubbed "Generations," is slated to begin construction in January 2011 and finish in December 2014. Included in the project are several improvements in its capacity to provide care for newborn babies, particularly those born prematurely or in need of intensive care.

Also included is an additional dedicated operating room for cardiac surgery.

Of existing hospital space, 100,789 square feet will be remodeled, and an additional 85,782-square-foot building will be constructed on the hospital's campus.

Today, the hospital contains only six private rooms for parents to spend time with their seriously ill, often prematurely delivered babies in private. The new building will bring that number up to 50.

Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects LLP, based in Portland, Ore., handled architecture work on the new renovations. A construction contractor has not yet been selected.

The hospital's chief executive, Richard Mandsager, said staffing of the new expansion will be done proportionally to the number of patients expected to come to the hospital when construction is complete. The hospital is beefing up its internship and other training programs to ensure demand for more nurses is met.

Completion of the project is contingent upon the state's approval of a certificate of need, a process designed to review new health care development projects. This process involves both an internal evaluation of the application and a public comment period.

Other hospital construction projects include:

Norton Sound Regional Hospital in Nome is planning to move into a brand new facility, with construction set to begin this spring.

Scheduled for completion in 2012, the $91 million project is set to more than triple the size of the existing facility. Portions of the current facility are 61 years old.

The current facility takes up 39,000 square feet; the new one will expand to 150,000 square feet.

Barrow soon will see the construction of its own replacement hospital, as the current Samuel Simmons Memorial Hospital, was built in 1963.

At 109,000 square feet, the new hospital will be more than four times the size of the old facility, according to the Web site of architecture firm RIM Architects, the company hired to design the hospital.

The new hospital will operate on a construction budget of $82 million.

The Denali Commission, an organization funded by the federal and state governments that works to build infrastructure in rural areas, listed in its fiscal year 2010 appropriations plan a number of health care- related construction projects, including: an 8,000-square-foot community health center to be constructed in Willow at an estimated cost of about $4.8 million; a 6,000-square-foot multi-use facility, along with a 3,000-square-foot clinic, to be constructed in Chistochina at a cost of just over $3.4 million; a primary care clinic in Hoonah that will take up 4,000 square feet and cost just over $3.1 million.

The total budget for all of the health care projects listed in the commission's fiscal year 2010 work plan is just over $31.6 million.

Sean Manget is a reporter for the Alaska Journal of Commerce.