Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children's Hospital says that due to the softness of the economy, it has put on hold for now plans to add four additional stories and 75 patient beds to its west tower.

Providence Sacred Heart recently completed a revised environmental approval application for that project to address traffic concerns with the planned addition. Construction of the project, which it originally began planning in 2002, will not be completed by 2014 as previously envisioned, says Mike Kelly, the medical center's director of facilities.

Providence is in the process of completing another part of its planned expansion of that tower, which involves completing the interior of the structure's fourth floor to add 25 beds that will be adaptable to handle a range of severity of medical issues, Kelly says. He says those beds are unrelated to an application the medical center filed last year with the Washington state Department of Health for a certificate of need to add 152 acute-care beds.

The proposed addition is part of $370 million in construction and equipment purchases that Providence had announced, some of which hinged on state approval of the acute-care beds and 21 intermediate-care nursery beds. The state approved the intermediate-care nursery beds, but denied the acute-care beds.

Providence still is designing the proposed four-story addition, which would include three patient floors and an additional floor for mechanical systems, but Kelly says, "It will be years with the economy the way it is" before the expansion is constructed. He says a projected cost for the project isn't available, because previous estimates were produced when materials costs were inflated and would no longer be accurate.

Part of the overall project calls for moving a lounge and some offices from the west tower's third floor to the fourth floor next year when the approved neonatal beds are added to the third floor. Each of the three additional patient-bed floors eventually would house 25 patient beds under the plan.

Sharon Fairchild, vice president of marketing and planning for Providence Health Care, which operates Sacred Heart, has said previously that the state's denial of the hospital's application for additional acute-care beds could affect its other expansion plans.