Hospital breaks ground on new building

~ Southeast Missouri Hospital's West Campus is expected to be completed by fall 2007.

Calling it "a major landmark in the history of the institution," Southeast Missouri Hospital broke ground Friday on the first phase of its new multimillion-dollar West Campus expansion.

In a ceremonial groundbreaking Friday morning, hospital administrators said they hope the new building -- and plans for at least one more -- will help them stay ahead of the curve in meeting increasingly needed medical services.

The new 44,000-square-foot two-story medical building on Mount Auburn Road is expected to be completed by fall 2007, with plans for a second building to the immediate south already in the works, said hospital president and CEO Jim Wente.

"When we opened our doors in 1928, Southeast Missouri Hospital was located on the western most part of our city limits," Wente said, referring to the hospital's main campus on Broadway. "This development is again on the western border of our city."

Mike Kohlfeld, chairman of the hospital's board of trustees, said the hospital has seen "dynamic growth," and that the new medical office building was the 20th major expansion in the hospital's 78-year history.

"Today is just another testament of making available the best care that the hospital can provide," Kohlfeld said.

The hospital has come a long way from the days when it opened in 1928, when a few dozen doctors lived here and worked mostly from their homes, said Dr. Curtis Coonce, president of the hospital's medical staff. Today, Southeast employs more than 250 physicians, he said.

Wente said construction is expected to begin immediately on green space between Mount Auburn Road and Interstate 55 in Cape Girardeau, just north of the new Central High School and a half-mile south of the Mount Auburn Road/Highway 74 intersection. Plans for a second medical building just to the south of the new one are indefinite, Wente said.

"It could be two years, it could be five," he said. "It just depends on how soon the area could support it."

The hospital owns nearly 34 acres of land on both sides of Mount Auburn between Highway 74 and Southern Expressway, property it purchased in 2001 from the Armstrong Heritage Trust. No plans are in place for property the hospital owns on the other side of Mount Auburn, Wente said.

The hospital has just recently opened Southeast Medical Plaza on its Broadway campus. But Wente said that building is already full and other doctors are still expressing interest in leasing space from the hospital.

Also, he said, the number of overall doctors is growing, along with the population in the hospital's service regions.

"A medical office building seems a logical starting point," he said. "This new building will help us stay ahead of the demand."

The new medical office building will feature a covered entrance where patients can be picked up or dropped off and a two-story atrium lobby. The exterior of the building will have a limestone finish with thin brick inset panels. Construction is expected to take 12 to 14 months, with occupancy anticipated in the late fall of next year.

Wente would not comment on exactly how much the West Campus expansion will cost.

smoyers@semissourian.com

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