Capital Region Medical Center expects its 115,000-square-foot expansion to the Madison Street hospital to be substantially completed by July 28 and operational by early September.
The $37 million project broke ground in February 2014 and will increase space at CRMC's main campus by one-third. Hospital officials expect an additional two to three weeks of work on finishing touches after the targeted completion date, beginning equipment move-in around late August or early September, said Director of Facilities Martin Grabanski.
A focus of the project, the 15,000-square-foot expansion to the hospital's outpatient facility is "99.9 percent complete," Grabanski said, pending approval at the city and state levels. The outpatient expansion is connected to the existing outpatient area, extending it north on the hospital's main level on the second floor.
"We've consolidated a lot of our services there. Everything about our expansion is about customer service, ease of access," Grabanski said. The new outpatient center will be accompanied by a centralized registration desk, with nearby additions of a pharmacy, coffee shop and gift shop. "We've created what we hope and feel will be a very comfortable and efficient customer experience."
That efficiency was a driving force behind the expansion's design, as were improving ease of navigation and upping curb appeal, Grabanski said.
"So many hospitals are hard to get around and tough to navigate, so we've done some things that we hope will improve the wayfinding," he continued.
The expansion moves the main entrance to the hospital farther northeast on Madison Street, and patients should only need to walk inside to find where they need to be.
"There are three high-speed elevators when you come in the front door. Right away you'll come to a registration area, or you can come into the second level and right away you'll get your outpatient treatment," Grabanski said.
Cooperation with Jefferson City and local utility providers will also improve navigation to the hospital.
"Making Monroe two-way is going to help a lot," Grabanski said. Monroe Street runs along the back side of the hospital and is being transitioned from a one-way street to a two-way, along with redevelopment of the intersection at Monroe and Stadium Boulevard to the hospital's south.
"The city has been superb to work with. The utility companies have been excellent to work with," Grabanski said. "The communication, the teamwork, how people work together can make or break a project."
Exterior improvements should also make the hospital itself more attractive. "When you're coming down Madison, instead of looking at a large parking garage, we've enclosed all of the parking structures," Grabanski said.
Over the next two months, contractors will continue work on the rest of the expansion, which includes space for CRMC's specialty physicians, a new conference center area, pharmacy, gift shop, coffee shop and rehabilitation center. Drywall work, painting, window installations, some concrete work, and landscaping and irrigation also remain - "the finishing touches, so to speak," Grabanski said.
Other finishing touches like waiting room furniture and artwork have gone out for bid, and CRMC is hoping for input from local artists.
"Most of our artwork will revolve around nature, and local nature," Grabanski said. Other aesthetic themes will highlight the Capitol and its architectural features.
Local artists interested in submitting their work to potentially be displayed at CRMC should contact Sharon Hagan via email at [email protected].
Decor isn't the only place CRMC is consulting the local community. In fact, local contractors have dominated the construction process, led by St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Companies and Jefferson City-based Sircal Contracting.
"We're pushing 80 percent local participation right now. We're very proud of that," Grabanski said. "We should surpass that by the end."
When construction is completed, more than 30 specialty physicians currently working out of offices around town will relocate to CRMC's main campus. Those specialties include pediatrics, ENT and neurology on the first floor; orthopaedics, internal medicine and gastroenterology on the second floor; and obstetrics and gynecology and surgical services on the third floor, as well as a breast center and outpatient services including ultrasound, X-ray, lab, pharmacy, PT, OT, EEG, EKG and ECHO.
CRMC will welcome new physicians specializing in occupational medicine and ENT, who will use space that had been set aside in the expansion for future growth.
"When you do a project of this size, you don't want to build it to full capacity. You always want to have a little bit of shell space so you can grow down the road," Grabanski said. "We're not even done building it, and it's already filling."
Expansion plans had set aside five modules of shell space, two of which have now been accounted for.
"We've got a lot of interest from physicians who have seen what's happening, and they want to be a part of it."