The first phase of a $42 million modernization project at Providence Heart Institute is now underway.

Tenant improvements began earlier this month on the fifth floor and roof of the building, located at 62 W. Seventh, where a new catheterization lab, tenant improvements to echocardiography and blood draw labs, and a new rooftop HVAC unit to support the renovated area will be installed. Construction is expected to wrap up in September.

Updates, valued at $4 million, are the first step in two-part phase one project, according to a permit application submitted to the city of Spokane.  The total area to be improved is about 2,000 square feet.

Currently, on the east side of the building, the fifth floor holds two unused echocardiography labs, a blood draw room, several offices and utility closets, and a locker room, site plans show. Design plans call for the demolition of walls dividing some smaller lab spaces and adjacent offices to make room for a new pediatrics-focused catheterization lab. The existing fifth-floor locker room will be converted to serve as a staff room and a new storage closet and bathroom are also planned in the space, site plans show.

Spokane-based Bouten Construction Co. is the general contractor, JRJ Architects, of Beaverton, Oregon, is the architect, and the Spokane office of Seattle-based Coffman Engineers Inc. is the engineering firm, according to permit information.

“It’ll be the first cath lab designed and dedicated for pediatric cath lab procedures,” says Michael Pirkle, executive director of the Heart Institute. “We currently are doing cath lab procedures, but the labs were built many years ago and not necessarily with pediatric patients in mind, so I know that our pediatric cardiologists are very excited.”

A catheterization lab is a specialized procedure room used for heart imaging via catheters, Pirkle says. The new lab space will include equipment that can provide doctors with better imaging quality.

Clinics and departments moved out of the space to other available areas on the fifth floor starting in December, Pirkle says, noting that construction hasn't impacted operations at the medical center.

Construction crews currently are finishing preparations for the new physician rooms, and demolition of the existing area is expected to begin in February.

“More and more patients in the community are needing cath-lab procedures in the adult area, but pediatric cardiology cath-lab patient volumes have also continued to grow,” Pirkle says. “Because this cath lab is focused on pediatric cases, it's going to move those pediatric cases into the new lab, which then opens up more time for the adult cases.”

Work on the lab is expected to begin in May, with the lab’s equipment — purchased from Amsterdam-based Royal Philips — to be installed in August, says Emily Peterson, project manager at Bouten Construction.

“It takes a while for the equipment vendor to install the equipment, and then there’s lots of rounds of testing between the equipment vendor and the staff on site,” she says. “So we're hoping by September everything's all up and running and (doctors can) start seeing patients.”

A permit application for the second step of phase one — a $9.8 million, 25,000-square-foot renovation of the Heart Institute’s first and second floors — is under review, and is expected to be completed in March 2027, Peterson says.

The first floor will be expanded to a hospital-licensed outpatient clinic, with 10 exam rooms, doubling capacity, site plans show. The project also includes a new canopy extending from the first-floor lobby to the exterior stairwell and elevators leading to hospital parking. The second floor will include additional exam rooms and an outpatient imaging department.

Some of the phase one funding was provided through community and large donor fundraising organized by the Providence Inland Northwest Foundation, which raised $10 million between 2020 and 2024, Pirkle notes. The remaining funds need for the project will come from Providence.

The Heart Institute was constructed in the early 1990’s by Bouten Construction, says Ryan Keogh, director of special projects at Bouten Construction.

“There’s this recognition among many that it was time for an update and a refresh,” he says. “And as this had been percolating over the last eight years now, we’ve had that desire to modernize, make it bright, and bring additional services in.”