Holy Family Hospital says construction could begin as early as next March on a major expansion that would include both additional hospital space and two to four floors of privately owned medical-office space.


The hospital estimates the cost of its portion of the project alone, involving main floor and basement space, at about $16 million. The overall project cost could be double that amount, or more, depending on how many medical-office floors are built, hospital officials suggest.


We have a green light to continue to go forward with the planning process and expect to decide by the end of this year as part of the hospitals normal budget-planning process whether to build the project, says Tom Corley, Holy Familys president.


A financial assessment already has been completed, showing that the project pencils out based on projected revenues, he says. Before it could proceed, though, the project would need a favorable recommendation from the board of Providence Health Care, the Spokane-based hospital system of which Holy Family is part, and approval by holding company Providence Services board, he says.


The construction project is expected to take 15 or 16 months to complete, finishing up around August of 2007, assuming it kicks off next spring, Corley says.


The new spacecurrently estimated at about 87,000 square feet, counting two floors of medical office spaceis to be located on the north side of the Holy Family campus in an area bordered by the hospitals main outpatient entrance, cancer center, and outpatient surgery center. It would connect to those buildings, filling in an open area where there currently is landscaping, sidewalks, and some parking.


The hospital is working on the project with NexCore Group LP, a Denver-based company that has broad experience in developing and managing collaboratively owned health-care properties, Corley says.


As envisioned, NexCore would oversee development of the expansion. Holy Family would own the space it occupies, and NexCore would own the upper floors, at least initially, possibly with other investors, and would be responsible for marketing and managing those floors.


One of the goals would be to offer investment opportunities for physicians, enabling them to own the space they occupy in the complex, Corley says. Part of the impetus behind the medical-office space portion of the expansion is that theres a shortage of such space on the North Side, and many doctors have indicated a desire to be located on Holy Familys campus for convenience reasons, he says.


Based on NexCores initial assessment of market demand, the medical-office portion of the expansion likely will include at least two floors, with about 18,500 square feet of new space per floor, and possibly could end up at four floors, Corley says.


Holy Family would occupy about 41,000 square feet of the new space, a sizable portion of which would be used to house a pre-surgical assessment area and new pre- and post-operative patient center, plus a station where lab samples would be drawn. The hospitals adjoining surgical suites would be enlarged, and several new surgical suites would be added, and its cancer center also would be modernized and expanded into some of the new space, among other changes, Corley says.


The proposed expansion represents the second and final phase of a two-phase project the hospital launched four years ago, he says. The first phase cost about $28 million and included construction of a large new emergency center and a quadrupling of the size of the hospitals imaging center, both on the north side of the hospital complex. Also, the hospitals helicopter pad was moved from a ground-level location near there to the rooftop of the main building, and two new elevators were installed. Additionally, on the hospitals south side, a new main entrance, lobby, waiting room, and gift shop were constructed.


Corley said early on that one of the focuses of the overall project was to correct layout and infrastructure deficiencies, such as by improving obstructed flow of foot traffic between the south and north sides of the hospital campus and by centralizing scattered imaging and cardiology services.


He says, There are still ambulatory services on the south side of the hospital that need to move to the north, to eliminate unnecessary driving or walking by patients and so the south side of the hospital can be devoted more exclusively to admitted patients and their loved ones.


The phase of work now being readied should help correct those remaining patient-flow problems, he says.