Clovis Community to expand
Community Medical Centers’ board of trustees, on July 10, approved $30 million to expand Clovis Community Medical Center. The money will be used to add four additional operating suites to the outpatient care center and to plan and design a new patient bed tower for the future.
“We’re ecstatic to begin work on a building expansion at Clovis Community Medical Center,” said Craig Castro, the hospital’s chief executive officer. “We serve one of the fastest growing regions in the state and we’re eager to meet the increasing need for quality health care. This $30 million is a start on what we ultimately plan.”
Clovis Community’s service area is projected to see a population increase of 15,000 within the next five years and a 43% increase in overall growth in the next two decades. Community’s corporate CEO Tim Joslin told Clovis City Council at an April meeting that Clovis Community was important strategically to the health system and a top priority on the private non-profit corporation’s expansion list.
The hospital’s master plan calls for an addition to the outpatient surgery center, more parking, a four-story bed tower within the next few years, another four-story bed tower in the future, and reconstruction of much of the current hospital.
The first phase of construction is slated to begin October 2008 with the hospital’s central plant’s mechanical and electrical system, said Denise Perry, director of business planning at Clovis Community.
The 22,000-square-foot, two-story outpatient surgery center will be added to the west of the existing hospital and will contain four new operating rooms, pre-op rooms, a post-anesthesia care unit and support areas on the top floor. The first floor will include some empty space for future expansion needs. Completion and occupancy is planned for fall of 2009.
Perry said $10 million of the funds approved by the board will go towards architectural work on a new four-story, 89,000-square-foot tower that would extend from the southeast corner of the existing hospital. She expects to submit plans to the state in November of 2008 and begin construction sometime at the end of 2009 with hopeful occupancy by August 2011.
The new tower would add up to 108 patient beds to the hospital. It would also house the Leon S. and Pete P. Peters Future Generations Center with room for 16 perinatal private labor, delivery and recovery rooms, plus an eight-bed special care nursery, two C-section suites and a Level 1 nursery for the most fragile newborns.
This story was reported by Erin Kennedy. She can be reached at ekennedy@communitymedical.org.