PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson Healthcare’s campus modernization and expansion project is still in the design phase, but soaring construction costs have become a central concern for CEO Mike Glenn and the commissioners before the first shovel is expected to hit the dirt in early 2023.
The current estimated project cost of $90 million to $100 million — which is still being pared down — is significantly lower than the original $160 million estimate, but that number was about two times what had been anticipated.
Glenn said that not only is hospital construction in general expensive, but also the circumstances of the Jefferson Healthcare project are contributing to its price tag.
“It’s the nature of hospital construction which is more code- and regulation-driven than other kinds of public buildings, like schools,” Glenn said.
A hospital’s wide diversity of services and functions — laboratories, surgical suites, cafeterias, imaging — are reflected in the wide range of rules that govern its construction, which add to the overall cost.
Complicating the Jefferson Healthcare project design has been determining how new construction can be integrated with the medical center’s current mix of buildings assembled over a nearly 60-year period from 1965 to 2016.
The cinder block 1965 building where the Garde Row Cafe and administration office are located was found to have significant seismic and structural weaknesses, as well mechanical and electrical problems, that were too extensive and expensive to fix.
“This building has very clearly outlived in his whole life,” Glenn said. “When we did engineering studies to try to determine the extent of the deficiencies and what our different options were, the smartest direction was to demolish and then build up again.”
Because the building housing the laboratory and diagnostic imaging services built in 1988 had fewer seismic and structural issues, it will be retrofitted and stabilized rather than razed.
Buildings constructed in 1995 and 2016 are in good condition and will not need to be upgraded.
Glenn compared the simultaneous building, rebuilding and demolishing of the medical center project to heart surgery where you need to keep blood circulating in order for the heart to continue to pump to keep the patient alive.
“We’ve got an obligation to provide food services for our patients and for our staff and the cafeteria is going to be torn down, so we’re going to have to create an alternative dietary solution to make sure that for that year and a half or two-year period,” Glenn said.
“We’re going to have to create bypasses not only for our patients, but for our staff to get around the construction in a safe way and get to where they need to go for services or their jobs.”
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Reporter Paula.Hunt can be reached at Paula.Hunt@soundpublishing.com
