Southeast plans $15 million medical building project

Southeast Missouri Hospital plans to replace its grassy hillside on Broadway with a four-story medical office building and an adjoining parking garage.

The hospital is scheduled to break ground on the $15 million project in late November or early December and complete it by July 2005, officials said Tuesday.

Jim Wente, hospital administrator, said plans also are being made to expand the existing clinical services building on Lacey Street, including constructing new operating suites. That $6.2 million project is expected to get under way before year's end and be completed by February 2005.

Hospital officials are seeking to rezone the 1700 block of Broadway to clear the way for construction of the office building on land that once housed a Pizza Hut. Cape Girardeau's Planning and Zoning Commission will consider the request when it meets at 7 p.m. tonight at city hall. Final action rests with the city council.

Hospital officials want the property rezoned from C-1, local commercial, to C-3, central business district, so they can construct the 66-foot-high medical building. The rezoning is needed because of the building height, hospital officials said.

The 75,000-square-foot building would provide office space for approximately 40 doctors, said Wente. In addition to doctors' offices, the building will house hospital support services, including radiology, laboratory services and a retail pharmacy.

Connecting buildings

A pedestrian bridge will connect it with Southeast's Regional Cancer Center. A concourse will provide a weather-protected link to a new 306-car parking garage that will be built west of the medical office building.

The fourth floor of the parking garage will provide a pedestrian connection to the Lacey Street parking lot.

The medical office building will have lobbies on both the east and west ends of the building for patient access, hospital officials said.

Wente said the hospital has considered construction of a medical office building for more than a decade.

"More and more, we see hospitals of this size and scope of services with a medical office building attached to the facility," he said.

"It creates efficiencies for physicians, and it's a convenience for patients," Wente said.

Dr. Khalid Khan, president of the medical staff at Southeast Missouri Hospital, said the new building also will be a convenience for doctors who attend to patients both in their offices and in the hospital.

"I think it will be one of the positive points to recruit people," said Khan.

Project financing

Wente said the project will be financed through hospital reserve funds and future rental of the medical office suites.

As for the clinical services building expansion, it will be financed with a portion of the proceeds of revenue bonds issued by the hospital in 2002, Wente said.

The clinical services building expansion project will increase the number of operating suites from 14 to 18 and provide additional square footage for the cardiovascular laboratory and the departments of radiology and emergency medicine.

The new operating suites will be well equipped rooms that will meet the needs of cardiothoracic, vascular, neurological, orthopedic and general surgeons who practice at Southeast, Wente said.

Hospital officials announced the new projects even as work continues on a $16 million project to construct two new medical/surgical floors atop the hospital's Harrison Annex, along with a major renovation of five existing nursing units.

That project is expected to be completed in July 2005, providing the hospital with 107 private beds, amounting to 42 percent of its total beds, officials said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123