Providence Holy Family Hospital says it has started work on a $9.5 million expansion and remodel of the maternity center at its campus on Spokane's North Side.

Work on the project is to be completed in two phases. The first phase will begin in early 2013 and be completed by July, and the second phase is scheduled to be completed in early 2014, the hospital says in a press release about the project.

Bouten Construction Co., of Spokane, is the contractor on the project, and Spokane-based NAC|Architecture designed it.

The project is intended to enhance what Holy Family describes as the labor, delivery, recovery, and post-partum (LDRP) model of care.

The expansion will increase the floor space in each of the 15 maternity suites by 124 square feet and add a 16th suite, bringing each suite to 340 square feet of space.

The project also will involve constructing three new triage rooms, adding a fourth prep and post-partum room, and adding two specialty-care nursery beds.

"This project will ensure that patients continue to experience the same great care they have had in the past in a birthing center that provides a home-like setting with safe, quality care," says Elaine Couture, CEO of Holy Family and Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children's Hospital, in the release.

Holy Family's maternity center is on the second floor of the hospital, where more than 1,200 babies are born annually, the hospital says.

Separately, Spokane-based Providence Health Care is in the midst of an $18.6 million emergency-room expansion and remodel project at Sacred Heart, in which it's adding 14,000 square feet of floor space and renovating 4,000 square feet of existing space.

Bouten Construction is the contractor on that project as well, and Seattle-based Mahlum Architects designed it.

Meanwhile, in Spokane Valley, Providence is constructing the $58 million Providence Medical Park, which will provide outpatient diagnostic and treatment services and medical offices in a two-building, 127,000-square-foot complex.