Spokane’s two largest hospitals, both located on Spokane’s lower South Hill, are planning sizable expansion and remodel projects this year with a total value of $13.4 million, records on file with the city of Spokane show.

In one project, Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children’s Hospital, located at 101 W. 8th, plans to expand its cardiac intensive care unit. In the other project, Deaconess Hospital, at 800 W. 5th, plans to expand its emergency department.

The $9.7 million Sacred Heart project is under plan review by the city of Spokane, and the $3.7 million Deaconess project is in the predevelopment stage of the city’s permitting process.

Joe Robb, a spokesman for Providence, cautions that plans for the Sacred Heart project are still preliminary and subject to internal approval.

“The whole thing could change completely,” he says, adding that any further comment would just be speculation.

The hospital, though, has applied for building permits for a two-phase project and has submitted extensive construction plans and documentation to the city. 

Mike Penkunis, a plan examiner for the city of Spokane, says the permitting process is going smoothly for a project of its scope.

The city also has indicated in a public notice that it’s likely to issue a finding of no significant impact for the Sacred Heart project as part of a state-required environmental review.

A checklist in the environmental review, which Penkunis says is required for new construction exceeding 12,000 square feet of floor space, shows work on the 20-month project is planned to start as early as next month.

Penkunis says the initial phase of the project would be a 17,100-square-foot second-floor addition to the central tower, which also is referred to in the plans as the nursing tower. The addition would be built over the ground floor emergency department between the central tower and the Children’s Hospital, or east wing of the hospital. The addition also would be built under an existing skywalk, named the Fish Bridge, which connects to the central tower and east wing of the hospital.

The second phase would involve a remodel of 12,000 square feet of floor space on the second floor of the central tower, Penkunis says.

The cardiac ICU would have 34 beds after the project completion, the environmental checklist shows. Sacred Heart’s website says the hospital currently has 22 cardiac ICU beds.

The unit cares for patients who have undergone open-heart surgery, heart or kidney transplant surgery, or other thoracic surgery, the hospital’s website says. It also cares for heart attack patients and other high-risk patients who require intensive monitoring and advanced critical-care nursing services.

About 100 employees would work in expanded cardiac ICU, the environmental checklist says. The hospital reported last year that it had 4,180 full-time-equivalent employees.

The project also requires approval by the Washington State Department of Health, environmental documents say. Providence’s Robb declines to say where the hospital stands in the state’s approval process.

Bouten Construction Co., a prominent Spokane contractor with extensive experience in constructing medical facilities, is listed in the documents as the contractor on the project, and Mahlum Architects Inc., of Seattle, designed it. Coffman Engineers is the structural engineer.

Bouten and Mahlum have teamed up on a number of Providence projects, including an $18.6 million Sacred Heart emergency department addition and remodel, which was completed last year. A portion of the emergency department project is on the ground floor space underneath the planned cardiac ICU project area, plans show.

An environmental checklist submitted in 2011 during the permitting stage of the Sacred Heart emergency department project indicated that project was to include infrastructure for a future second floor.

For the planned project at Deaconess, that hospital has submitted to the city of Spokane a predevelopment application in which it proposes to construct a 1,900-square-foot ground-floor addition, which would be attached to the south and west sides of the hospital’s 11-story patient-bed tower.

The project also would include renovating 11,100 square feet of space in the Deaconess emergency department, including an expanded waiting room and building entrance on the ground floor of tower, the application says.

The work also would include replacing mechanical air-handling equipment, the application says.

Deaconess spokeswoman Sasha Weiler says the project “is desperately needed. The emergency department hasn’t been updated in quite a few years,” although she declines to disclose further details about the project.

Predevelopment is an optional preliminary stage of the planning process that helps city agencies identify potential hurdles a project might face before the applicant files for land-use and building permits.

Ascension Group Architects, of Arlington, Texas, is designing the Deaconess project, which could start in February or March, the application says. No contractor is listed on the predevelopment application.

The emergency department at Deaconess currently is certified to handle Trauma III patients, meaning it can treat critically injured patients with single-system injuries.

Patients with multisystem trauma are treated at hospitals certified for a higher level of trauma treatment, such as Sacred Heart, which is Deaconess’ biggest competitor here.

Deaconess, which is licensed for 388 beds, is the second largest Spokane hospital. It’s a part of the for-profit Spokane-based Rockwood Health System, which also operates Valley Hospital, and Rockwood Clinic PS, a multispecialty practice with clinics throughout the Spokane area. Rockwood Health System is a unit of Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems Inc.

Sacred Heart, the largest Spokane-area hospital, with 644 beds, is operated by Spokane-based nonprofit Providence Health Care, which also operates Providence Holy Family Hospital and a number of other health care facilities and services in Eastern Washington. Providence Health Care is a unit of Renton, Wash.-based Providence Health & Services.