Southern Metro Updates - Provo
Utah Valley Regional Medical Center Prepares For Major Construction Project
Projected Construction - June 2015
Source: 1bvisual.com
Source: 1bvisual.com
March 14, 2015
By Barbara Christiansen - The Daily Herald - http://www.heraldextra.com/news/loca...c65346149.html
Utah Valley Regional Medical Center is preparing for a new and improved facility to better serve its patients. It’s planned to be completed in the fall
of 2018, with a new patient care tower.
“The majority of the new area will be for patient care,” spokeswoman Janet Frank said. “All of the operating rooms and emergency room and the areas that are in the tower now will move to
the new tower. It will shift the main entrance of the facility to the south and west of our campus.”...
Some of the current work is visible to the public; some is behind the scenes.
“We are getting ready for the major construction project that will happen starting this summer,” Frank said. “These are projects that will help us move things around in preparation.”
“We are moving departments around,” she said. “Our inpatient rehabilitation unit has to move to a different portion of the hospital. The building they are in right now has to come down.
We are making space.”
Another project will affect the hospital’s hyperbaric chamber, which is being moved.
“To the south of the hospital people can see some construction going on around what used to be the grounds building,” she said. “It will be the hyperbaric chamber and wound clinic. We have
added a modular unit into the existing building. The clinic space will go into the modular unit and the hyperbaric chamber will eventually go into the existing permanent structure.”
Another project happening on the campus’s south side affects the west building.
“We are adding nine new intensive care rooms,” Frank said. “We are expanding the intensive care unit to have more patient rooms in order to do some more shifting of departments.”
Also visible to the public passing by will be a new parking area to the south where some homes owned by the hospital have been removed.
“It will likely be from 300 West to the west,” Frank said. “It will probably be employee parking.”
If it sounds like a game of musical chairs with hospital departments, that could be close. But the effects should be small.
“We will still be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Frank said. “We do know there will be some inconveniences, but we are doing our best to make plans to minimize any inconvenience.
But the end product will be worth it. The new structure will have much better patient rooms. “
When hospital officials determined the need for upgrades, they did research and determined it was more cost effective to build a new structure, Frank said.
They are looking to the future.
“The schedule right now is that we will break ground in the middle of June,” she said. “Construction is scheduled to go through fall of 2018. After that we will have to address the demolition
of the current seven-story tower.”
Utah Valley Regional Medical Center - Expansion and Redevelopment
Utah Valley Regional Medical Center 2014
Timeline : Provo council gets first look at UVRMC expansion plans - May 24, 2013 12:28 am • Genelle Pugmire - Daily Herald
http://www.heraldextra.com/news/loca...df9702755.html
PROVO -- Health care is changing and the older campus at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center needs to change with it, according to Steve Smoot, regional vice president of
Intermountain Healthcare. On Tuesday the Provo Municipal Council got its first glance at proposed construction projects for the medical center in the next few years.
"Hospitals get used more than most public buildings," Smoot said. He noted that besides being open 24 hours a day seven days a week, there is wear and tear on the building from
the sheer number of people who use it and what it's used for.
Smoot told the council the medical center's main tower is now 40 years old and in need of replacement. "The economy delayed the project," he said. Otherwise construction would
be ongoing. According to Smoot the plan is to begin that first phase of buildout starting in 2015, most likely with the main tower...
...The other issue is the amount of land on which UVRMC has to build.
"We have been working on our expansion and purchase of homes south of the current campus," Smoot said. However, right now the center sits on 27 acres including parking
lots.
"Other hospitals in IHC have three to four times that amount of acreage," Smoot added.
Intermountain has been working closely with the city and the council and Smoot said while they are in the midst of planning they needed the council to understand the day will come,
sooner rather than later, when they will be tearing down homes and requesting roads be vacated.
"We went to the council Tuesday to make sure the city was comfortable with our plans and getting to them early so it all makes sense," Smoot said.
The replacement tower is still in the beginning stages and Smoot said he is not sure how much higher it may go over the current seven stories, but they learned from watching the issues
of the nine-story MTC concerns it's not too soon to let the council know their intentions...
...UVRMC is in the largest hospital in the county and provides tertiary service for not only Utah County but all of central Utah.
The one thing Smoot is sure of, the hospital will always have one big main campus.
"The hospital will be one contiguous structure with some outer buildings," he said.
Smoot added the new additions will have a vibrancy and will have greater technology, thanks in part to the Google Fiber coming to the city and the hospital.
June 9, 2014 - Barbara Christiansen DAILY HERALD
http://www.heraldextra.com/news/loca...b77f13892.html
PROVO -- Monday morning marked the beginning of the end, which will become a new beginning. Utah Valley Regional Medical Center is set to be expanded, and the first of
many steps is removing the hospital-owned homes south of the facility.
Three homes saw their end, with more to come. It has been a long time coming.
"There are 74 homes in that neighborhood and we [Intermountain Healthcare] own the majority of them," said Janet Frank, spokeswoman for UVRMC. "For the past 10 years we
have been purchasing homes to the south of the facility as homeowners approached us. It has taken us this long to purchase enough homes in the area for our project."
Frank said that the removal of the hospital-owned homes is the first step in their hospital replacement project that will take several years to complete. The plans for the project are
not expected to be approved by the Intermountain Healthcare Board of Trustees until the fall.
"Then we will be able to unveil what the building looks like," Frank said...
...Patient rooms in the new facility are expected to be larger than current ones and will be configured in a more efficient way than they are presently.
"It won't necessarily give us a lot more patient beds," she said. Along with changes to the patient rooms, there will be new working areas.
"We have several service areas, like the imaging department, cancer services and heart services, that have locations spread throughout the hospital. They really need to be close
together." The new facility is expected to remedy that situation...
..."We will have improved parking and access, rooms that are what they should be," he said. "There will be adequacies that will improve the efficiency of care. We will have things
aligned in a way to increase efficiency. It is going to be very impressive."
Construction is set to begin in summer or fall of 2015. Some of that will be on areas currently used for parking. The removal of the homes will provide space to replace that
parking.
Until that time, the public will not see many changes...
...Ethan Shumway, Intermountain's communications director for its Urban South Region, had two different perspectives for the project. Not only is he an employee who can look forward
to the changes, he and his family lived for five years in one of the homes demolished Monday.
"I have mixed feelings about it," he said. "Overall, I am very excited. This is a great neighborhood. We had a great opportunity to live there among friends. We got to know a lot of
wonderful people."
"I have a unique perspective," he said. "Working here at the hospital, I know what the replacement hospital looks like. But I lived in that community and benefited from the great
community that we have here in Provo."
Hill looked to the future.
"It is going to be fantastic -- what a growing county deserves for a major medical center," he said.
"I came here a long time ago, 31 years ago," he said. "The tower was new then. We are going to bring everything up to date to have a world class facility. We will have a campus that
will also be healing. There will be a lot of green space and high tech rooms. It will feel like a campus and a place where you want to come. It will be a great place to work and to be a
patient. It will be an awesome experience."
Crews from RB Construction work to tear down a home in Provo on Monday, June 9, 2014. Utah Valley Regional Medical Center is beginning to demolish a number of homes they've purchased over the years in order to make room for a major expansion project. SPENSER HEAPS, Daily Herald
SPENSER HEAPS, Daily Herald
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