Wrangell Sentinel - the oldest continuously published paper in Alaska.

Wrangell Medical Center takes

next step with new hospital plans

Ryan Long

Plans for the new Wrangell Medical Center Hospital at the Alpine site have been getting firmer and firmer by the day.

On Tuesday, Architect David Brown with the David E. Johnson Architect firm presented a preliminary design to the same hospital employees whose input Brown has been gathering since early June.

“It’s really a very preliminary plan. We’ve taken the initial fact gathering and several teleconferences with Noel and his staff to go over the important things of how this is situated on the site and how we place it,” said Brown.

Highly visible front door and rooms overlooking Zimovia Straits have been top priorities for the hospital staff and the architectural team.

The facade of the building is a secondary consideration at the moment. Hospital staff, administration and Brown’s architectural team are focused primarily on function.

“We’ve got sort of a rough view on paper of the building. We take that and start to develop it into a floor plan. This week we’re meeting with the staff to make sure that the plan reflects what they told us,” said Brown.

The current schematics are preliminary, but do allow staff members and community members a chance to better visualize the new hospital and its relation to nearby geography and the Alaska Island Community Services facility.

“We’re using that as a tool to communicate to the staff what the building looks like on the site in relation to other things like parking and green space. We also colored the different departments so it’s really easy to see at a glance,” said Brown.

The metric for an efficient facility according to Wrangell Medical Center CEO Noel Rea is how many steps staff and patients may have to take to accomplish their respective goals.

“We’re trying to get the best physical environment and view for the residents. At the same time that we’re trying to align the building for the best view we’re also designing the floor plan so that the patient has to take the fewest steps possible between the AICS facility and the hospital and within the hospital itself,” said Rea.

On the timeline of project conception and project completion Brown says that WMC is between 10-20 percent complete.

“After this round we’ll be firming up the plans to go ahead with schematic design. I expect in the next two or three weeks to have a firm plan of what we want and where we’re heading. That can still change if need be but it will be pretty firm,” said Brown.

In about eight weeks the design and the facade of the building should also be firm.

“We try not to get people too focused on image right now because it’s so early that it really could change dramatically,” said Brown.

This week, the Wrangell Medical Center will be choosing a construction management team for the new hospital.

“We had a bunch of really good responses to our RFP and we will have the best of those presenting to the board and the board will convene and we should know by Friday who we are going with,” said Rea.

Once the construction management team is on board both WMC and Brown will be able to work with the design with a better idea of overall cost of construction.

“The plan is in its infancy and the pricing comes along right alongside that. That’s really critical. You might look at different spaces and think, ‘Hey I might want the lobby to be twice the size,’ but what’s the cost comes right after that,” said Brown.

At the moment, both WMC and AICS are working through approval from the Army Corps of Engineers.

“AICS and us are both kind of locked into environmental review right now. I don’t know which one is going to get done first but we do need to get that approval for both of us to go forward with us,” said Rea.

WMC has recently been approved by BKD, an independent third party auditor which performs financial analyses on institutions asking loans, to carry a note for the remaining funds needed to complete the hospital above what WMC already has through grant and state funding.

“Our financial analysis through BKD shows us supporting our loan comfortably. We have skin in the game on this thing. We’re not just expecting nor do we believe we should get all the money given to us,” said Rea. “We’ve got $3 million from the state, we have Rasmuson funding dependent on the community contribution, we have a grant with USDA we’re pursuing for about $500,000, we also have $2.5 million in Senator Begich’s earmark less. If we get more grants the loan will be smaller, but right now we’re looking at about a $17 million loan,” continued Rea.

While the final completion date is still nebulous, Rea said that WMC is working with a bias towards finishing the new hospital as quickly as possible. The hospital design is currently expected to be between 40-45,000 square feet with the potential for growth to meet demand for services.

“It will look a little different as far as the shape because we do need to make it fit within the property and with the AICS facility,” said Rea.