Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children's Hospital has taken the preliminary steps necessary for a sizable expansion and remodel of the hospital's emergency department.

The hospital submitted an application for environmental-impact review under the State Environmental Policy Act to the city of Spokane's building services department in mid-June, documents on file with the city show.

Those documents show that Sacred Heart is envisioning an 18,000-square-foot addition and 10,000-square-foot remodel of its emergency department, which is located just off of west Eighth Avenue in the southeast portion of the hospital campus.

The addition would be constructed on a piece of land that currently serves as a driveway and parking lot for the hospital's emergency department, a basic site plan shows.

A proposed schedule included in the application states that work on the project could begin during the fourth quarter of this year and be completed in the second quarter of 2013. It also shows that the main-floor expansion would be constructed to accommodate a second story in the future.

Anne McKeon, a Spokane-based spokeswoman with Providence, says the SEPA review application was submitted as a precursor to a hospital board of directors meeting that's to be held Sept. 11, at which board members will be presented with information regarding the project. She says it's not known whether the board will decide at that meeting whether to move forward with the expansion.

McKeon says Sacred Heart has been considering a sizable expansion to its emergency department since the early 2000s. She declines to disclose any additional information about the proposed expansion plans until after the board meeting.

A public comment period regarding the hospital's SEPA application ran from July 18 to Aug. 5, and the city's file doesn't show that there were any objections to the plans.

Sacred Heart has said in the past that it was considering expanding its emergency department as part of an effort to increase the number of adult acute-care beds at the hospital. A hospital executive told the Journal in July 2009 that the hospital had hoped, before the state rejected a certificate of need application for 152 more acute-care beds, to begin construction of the emergency department project later that year or in early 2010.

The question of how many, if any, acute-care beds Sacred Heart ultimately will be authorized to add currently is tied up in administrative law and Superior Court appeal proceedings, and it's unclear when a final determination will be made.