WILLMAR - Bids were awarded this week for construction of a new $5.9 million outpatient rehabilitation center at Rice Memorial Hospital.
The new facility, designed for state-of-the-art programming in physical and occupational therapy, will allow the Willmar hospital to meet a growing need for rehabilitation services.
The project has been long awaited, Rice Hospital CEO Mike Schramm told members of the hospital board Wednesday.
“The staff are excited,” he said.
Site preparation is expected to start in the next couple of weeks. Construction will take about a year to complete.
Progress was already visible last week with the demolition of the Jade Center, on Trott Avenue Southwest across from the hospital. The free-standing building, owned by the hospital, had housed outpatient children’s rehab services but was razed to make way for the new Rice Rehabilitation Center.
Construction of the rehab center is the last of three projects identified in a master facility plan completed by the hospital late in 2013. The plan sought to address evolving needs for hospital space, make optimal use of the space and position Rice Hospital to meet future demands for care.
Outpatient rehab is among the hospital’s fastest-growing areas. Over the past five years the Rice Rehab Center has had an average of 20,000 patient visits a year, with a 5.2 percent increase last year alone.
The new facility is expected to improve the patient experience and help the staff better meet patient needs for services that range from speech therapy and physical therapy to specialized programs such as concussion management and cancer rehabilitation.
Rice’s outpatient rehab services have been scattered in five different locations. Once the new center is complete, it will unite all the programs under one roof, a move expected to make it easier for patients to navigate and improve the continuity of care.
The site will also be more visible, with better access to parking.
The design includes separate areas for children’s services and for adults, gymnasium space and an indoor pool for water therapy.
Bids came in higher than the original estimate back in May of $5.4 million. Hospital officials told the board of directors Wednesday that the estimates were thought to be realistic. Costs may have been driven up by a tight schedule for the bidding process and a shortage of contractors able to take on the project, said Bill Fenske, chief financial officer.
Building contractors are currently busy and may not have been in a position for another project, he said. “There was just not a significant amount of interest from contractors.”
Efforts will be made to pare down the cost during the course of construction, Fenske said.
Bids were broken down into more than a dozen separate packages for key elements of the project, such as site excavation, roofing, mechanical, painting and fire protection. The majority of the contractors are local.
The hospital board agreed Wednesday to exclude two bid packages, one for carpentry and the other for glasswork, and rebid them in hopes of more aggressive pricing.
How the construction of the new rehabilitation center will be financed has not been determined yet. At least part of the cost is being supported by a recently launched campaign by the Rice Health Foundation to raise $1.5 million for the project. The “Restoring Health. Restoring Hope” campaign has already raised $65,000. Gifts made by Nov. 30 will be matched.
Extra steps from the parking lot
With the demolition of the Jade Center last week and the installation of fencing around the construction site of the upcoming new Rice Rehabilitation Center, much of the parking lot to the immediate south of Rice Memorial Hospital is out of commission - and will remain so for the duration of construction.
Patients, visitors and staff who park across Trott Avenue and south of the hospital building are having to walk farther to get around the fencing.
Schramm said there have been few complaints so far. But hospital officials are monitoring the situation to minimize potential headaches, he said. “We’re just going to need to make sure we communicate with our staff and with patients,” he said.
New issues will probably arise during the winter when snow removal becomes necessary, he said. “We’ll just have to work through and deal with some things.”
There appears to be enough parking, however, even if people have to walk farther from the south end of the hospital campus.
“We remind ourselves that we are promoting health and wellness and it doesn’t hurt us to walk,” Schramm said.
