Spokanes Bouten Construction Co. is building a $71.8 million tower for Kadlec Medical Center, in Richland, Wash.


The company expects to complete the project next spring, says President Bill Bouten. Its been a long-term project for Bouten, with preconstruction meetings beginning in 2004.


Bouten says the company has 100 people working on the job and expects to employ more than 125 workers there at the peak of construction in the next two months.


The building was designed by a team headed by Curtis Group Architects LLC, of Dallas. More than a dozen Spokane-area subcontractors are working on the project, including such companies as Tri States Rebar Inc., Central Pre-mix Prestress Co., Western States Steel & Fabrication Inc., and American Iron Works & Erectors Inc.


The six-story tower will add 175,000 square feet of floor space to the medical center, boosting it to 525,000 square feet overall, Bouten says.


The expansion is intended to help create more room for the hospitals growing operations and to move it toward its goal of providing private rooms for all of its patients, the hospital says.


The new tower will connect to four floors of a patient tower and will include space for future expansion.


The first floor will house what the medical center calls a clinical decision unit, where patients who dont need to be admitted can be held for observation. The second floor will have 10 operating rooms, with the capacity to add two more later.


Staff and building operations will occupy the third floor, and 28 private patient rooms will be constructed on the fourth floor.


The top two floors of the new tower will remain vacant for now.


Bouten has worked extensively with Kadlec since 1989, Bill Bouten says, including constructing an east addition with a new emergency room and intensive care unit, a new north building, an obstetric department expansion, and numerous renovations.


Bouten Construction expects annual revenues of around $60 million this year, an increase for the company over last years revenues, Bouten says.


Contact Jeanne Gustafson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at jeanneg@spokanejournal.com.