The Spokane Veterans Affairs Medical Center says it has broken ground on a physical-therapy building addition that will triple the space the hospital currently has dedicated to physical therapy.

The addition will cost about $1 million to build and equip, says Matthew Allen, a VA spokesman here.

The project site is on Freedom Drive, inside the hospital campus, just north of the main hospital building, which is at 4185 N. Assembly in northwest Spokane.

The current physical-therapy building is much smaller than the 2,000-square-foot, one-story addition that's under construction, Allen says.

Kevcon Inc., of Escondido, Calif., is the contractor on the project, and Architects West PA, of Coeur d'Alene, designed it. The project is expected to be completed in March.

The addition will include private rooms, a larger patient workout area, and more storage space, Allen says.

Allen says the demand for more physical-therapy space arose as the hospital increased other specialty services such as neurology and magnetic resonance imaging. Such services allow the VA to diagnose and treat patients who need physical therapy here rather than send them to other facilities, he says.

Other work under way at the hospital includes a 10,000-square-foot addition on the east side of the main building that will house an expanded pharmacy and other specialty care services. The hospital also is expanding its cooling system, upgrading its heating and ventilation systems, relocating its driveway, and making other infrastructure improvements.