Kootenai Medical Center, of Coeur dAlene, says its having a master campus plan done for its Post Falls Health Park that will guide its expansion projects there in the coming years.


KMC has hired Mithun Inc., a Seattle-based firm that provides master campus planning for health-care facilities, to produce a plan for its 10-acre Post Falls site, at 1300 E. Mullan. In 2005, Mithun completed a master plan for the hospitals main campus in Coeur dAlene. Projects outlined in the first phase of that plan, which included construction of a perimeter road, a support services building, and an expansion of the hospitals parking garage, are under way or have been completed already.


Currently, KMCs Post Falls Health Park includes a single medical office building that houses an urgent care clinic, diagnostic imaging services, and private medical offices.


Although Mithun hasnt completed the plan for the Post Falls site yet, the likely first project under the plan would be a cancer-care clinic, according to an article in a recent issue of KMCs Vim & Vigor magazine.


KMC announced last fall that it was planning to open in Post Falls a satellite of its North Idaho Cancer Center, which is just south of the Coeur dAlene hospital, but its still working on that project, says hospital spokeswoman Kim Anderson.


The Vim & Vigor article said that the planned construction of a two-story, 15,000-square-foot cancer clinic, located in the eastern half of the Post Falls property, was expected to be begun in time to wrap up in the spring of 2008. Since that article was published, however, the hospital has adjusted its original plans, Anderson says.


The need for KMCs cancer services is growing rapidly, and as a result, KMC is considering offering in Post Falls services, such as radiation therapy, that would affect the design of its cancer clinic there significantly, Anderson says. Now, the earliest groundbreaking on the project that KMC would anticipate would be in 2008, she says.


Preliminary plans that KMC is considering for the second phase of the master plan include a 51,000-square-foot building that could include patient exam rooms and patient beds, the article in Vim & Vigor says. The second phase also might include construction of a three-story parking garage east of the cancer center.


The third phase of work under the master plan could include a second medical office building, on the northwest side of the current medical office building there, according to the Vim & Vigor article.


That phase also might include a four-story parking garage just south of the second medical office building, as well as a new drop-off zone for patients and family.


KMC is continuing its strategic planning with Mithun this month and is doing some surveys to find out what services patients would need most, Anderson says. For now, KMC doesnt have a specific date by when it hopes to complete the master plan for its Post Falls property. Since theres still a lot to do on the plan, KMC also doesnt have a cost estimate or a time line for projects that might be included in the plan, Anderson says.


Contact Emily Brandler at (509) 344-1265 or via e-mail at emilyb@spokanejournal.com.