MWE Spokane Medical Properties LLC, of Midway, Utah, is proposing to build a $4.7 million skilled-nursing facility in the Spokane area this summer.


The company has applied to the Washington state Department of Health for a certificate of need to open a 38-bed, sub-acute transitional rehabilitation facility, says Toni Wright, an analyst with the department.


MWE Spokane representatives couldnt be reached for comment. Wright says, though, that the facility would be called the PineRidge Transitional Rehab Center.


MWE Spokane says in its filing that there are two possible locations for the facility. The preferred site is a two-acre parcel at the southwest corner of Blake Road and Mission Avenue, in Spokane Valley. The alternate location is at a 2.4-acre site at 2001 E. 29th, in Spokane.


The center would hire roughly 30 full-time equivalent employees during its first year of operation and employ up to 35 FTEs by the third year, Wright says. It would employ a myriad of health-care professionals, including physical, speech, and occupational therapists and registered nurses and licensed practical nurses.


The facility would serve patients whose main need is comprehensive rehabilitation, such as people who have suffered strokes or have undergone orthopedic procedures, such as knee and hip replacement surgeries.


Patients typically would spend less than 100 days at PineRidge, and its expected that Medicare often would pay for a portion of their care, Wright says.


A public hearing will be held May 18 at the Spokane Public Library on the certificate of need application. The department likely wont rule on the application for at least 45 days after the hearing, Wright says. According to the application, construction work on the project is scheduled to start this summer, and is expected to be completed in the summer of 2006, assuming the application is approved.


The application lists AHC of Spokane LLC, of Fruitland, Idaho, as the company that will operate the facility. Representatives of that company also couldnt be reached for comment.


Wright says she believes MWE Spokane is a subsidiary of a Utah concern that operates a handful of nursing homes and rehabilitation centers in Utah and Southern Idaho.