Only a smattering of larger health-care-related construction projects are under way or planned to start this year in the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene market, but a major capital plan that's expected to begin at Spokane's largest hospital portends much more work later.

That plan, at what's now called Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children's Hospital, eventually is to include $220 million to $235 million in construction over five years, plus another about $150 million in equipment purchases. This year, only about $10 million of that work is expected to begin, Providence officials say.

Meanwhile, Kootenai Health, the Coeur d'Alene-based operator of Kootenai Medical Center, is expanding and renovating facilities at KMC, and also is constructing an $8.2 million cancer center at its Post Falls campus. In all, Kootenai Health will have about $24 million in work under way this year.

Other health-care projects also are under way here, including Spokane Eye Clinic PS's new facility near downtown.

So far, no major projects are planned this year at either Deaconess Medical Center or Valley Hospital & Medical Center, both of which now are operated by Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems Inc., which acquired them in 2008, says Christine Varela, a spokeswoman for the hospitals.

"We're in the early stages of strategic planning, and it's too early to give any specifics about possible construction projects in 2009," Varela says.

Providence Holy Family Hospital also has no projects under way or planned to start this year, says Anne McKeon, hospital spokeswoman. "We're in a holding pattern," she says. "There's activity here, just not construction."

Sacred Heart

Sacred Heart's five-year capital investment spending program eventually will include an expansion of its west tower, a new doctors' building, a cancer center, and other projects.

The overall project will add 173 licensed beds to the 623-bed hospital, plus another nine unlicensed beds. When completed, it will give Sacred Heart a much larger emergency department, expanded intensive-care units, a better layout of services to streamline patient care, and enough room to meet growth needs until the year 2020, hospital officials have said.

Two projects are expected to get under way this year.

One of those projects is a $6 million to $7 million addition to a hospital parking garage located at Seventh Avenue and McClellan Street, says Mike Kelly, the hospital's director of facilities. Sacred Heart plans to add five decks to the parking garage, which will give it 400 additional parking spaces, Kelly says. The additional decks were planned even before construction of the garage began in 2005.

That project is expected to begin this summer and should take about three months to complete, he says. Bouten Construction Co., of Spokane, is the general contractor for the project, and Mahlum Architects Inc., of Seattle, designed it, he says.

The other project expected to get started this year is a $2 million to $3 million remodel of 2,500-square feet of space on the third floor of the hospital's west tower, Kelly says. The seven-story tower, completed in 2004, includes the Women's Health Center and part of the hospital's surgery center.

The west tower's third floor currently houses the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit (ICU), along with some sleeping, meeting, and break rooms, he says. The neonatal ICU will be expanded by 21 beds in the remodel, and other current uses will be moved elsewhere in the hospital, he says.

Construction is expected to start late this year on the remodeling project, and will take about six to seven months to complete, he says. Bouten also will be the general contractor for that project, and Mahlum Architects is handling design, he says.

Later, Sacred Heart plans to add three additional floors to the west tower, along with a mechanical penthouse, Kelly says.

No time frame for that construction has been confirmed yet, he says.

Another major project planned later in the overall capital plan will involve construction of a three-story, 54,000-square-foot facility that will connect with the hospital's emergency department just southeast of the main hospital tower.

The new building will serve as a separate section of the emergency department for children, he says.

Further details about plans for a new doctors' building and a cancer center haven't been made available yet, but both projects were said to be included in the overall capital plan.

Kootenai Health

In Coeur d'Alene, Kootenai Health hopes to wrap up construction in June on a new $12.3 million office building just north of the main building at KMC, says spokeswoman Kim Anderson. Called the Business Services building, it will open in June, she says.

The three-story, roughly 48,000-square-foot structure will house Kootenai Health's business and accounting offices, communications and marketing department, social services, health information management department, security operations, and human-resources department, Anderson says.

Coeur d'Alene architect John Eixenberger designed the project, and Bouten Construction is the general contractor, she says.

The new building will allow Kootenai Health to consolidate its business-services operations, some of which currently are housed at off-site locations, and also will create room in the main hospital building for expansion of KMC's radiology, infusion therapy, and outpatient treatment services.

Kootenai Health also is renovating the intensive-care and coronary-care units at KMC, at a cost of about $3.8 million. Those projects are expected to be complete late this spring, Anderson says. Polin & Young Construction Inc. is the contractor on those projects, and NAC/ Architecture is the architect, Anderson says.

Meanwhile, Kootenai Health plans to open in November a two-story, 21,000-square-foot cancer center in Post Falls, says Anderson. The $8.2 million center is being built at the 10-acre Kootenai Health Park, in Post Falls, at 1300 E. Mullan. The facility will house radiation therapy on the main floor and chemotherapy on the second floor. The clinic will be staffed by two medical oncologists and two radiation therapists, and will include complete support services such as patient exams, dietary and social services, a pharmacy, and chemotherapy infusion and labs, she says.

Contractors Northwest Inc., of Coeur d'Alene, is the contractor for that project, and Coeur d'Alene architects Rann Haight and Roy Marshall designed it, Anderson says.

Kootenai Health has said it plans to build a three-story, $30 million Kootenai Health Women's and Children's Center on the KMC campus, both to meet future demand for those services and to free up space those departments currently are taking in the main hospital so that other clinical services can be expanded there. The plans are for the center to be an addition connected to the main hospital. The project is still in the design phase, and no construction timeline has been set, Anderson says.

Spokane Eye Clinic

Near downtown Spokane, Spokane Eye Clinic PS is constructing a $9.6 million, 44,000-square-foot building at 427 S. Bernard, just north of its current facility in the medical district south of the city core, says Scott Glennie, the clinic's CEO.

Ramey Construction Co., of Spokane, is the contractor on the project, which is expected to open in mid-August, Glennie says. OMS Inc., of Spokane, and Atlanta-based Medical Design International designed the structure.

The four-story medical-office building, to be owned by an affiliated company called Inland Empire Optical LLC, is situated on land that once served as the busy clinic's parking lot. Spokane Eye Clinic also has branch offices at 31 E. Central, on Spokane's North Side, and at 12525 E. Mission, in Spokane Valley.

The new structure is to include one floor of clinical space and a floor for a surgery center and administrative offices, atop two floors of parking. The clinic's current, two-story, 15,000-square-foot building, which it has occupied since 1955, will be razed once the new structure is completed, Glennie says. The site of the older building will be used for parking.

A separate surgery center the clinic operates at 208 W. Fifth will be moved into the new structure. The clinic doesn't know yet what it will do with the 6,300-square-foot building on Fifth Avenue after it vacates it, Glennie says. Long term, the building could be leased or sold, he says.

The new building initially will accommodate a total of nine ophthalmologists and optometrists and 97 employees, compared with the six doctors and 91 employees who work in the old building, he says.

The clinic plans to hire more doctors and employees at a steady pace in the future, he says. A new physician will be starting in August.

Also, the new facility will allow the clinic's surgery center to grow to five operating rooms, from the three it has currently, he says.

Spokane Eye Clinic also will have enough room in the new facility to conduct clinical research, he says. One or two examination rooms will be dedicated to research, and the clinic plans to hire a research coordinator, he says. The clinic started a glaucoma study last fall, he adds.

In Spokane Valley, a $2.2 million project is under way for Spokane Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic PS. The 7,000-square-foot clinic will be located at 13414 E. Mission. Ramey Construction Co., of Spokane, is constructing the building, which is scheduled to be complete late this summer, says Rod Emerson, CEO of Spokane ENT. OMS Inc. designed the clinic, which will employ about 10 people, he says.

The Valley clinic will have the same floor plan as ENT's 7,000-square-foot North Side facility, located at 9922 N. Nevada. ENT also has a 33,000-square-foot main office at 217 W. Cataldo, just north of downtown.

"We have a good patient base out in the Valley, and we want to make it more convenient for them, and expand our business at the same time," Emerson said in January.