By STEVE EIGHINGER
Herald-Whig Staff Writer
Blessing Hospital's ambitious construction schedule involving a $70 million patient tower on the north side of its 11th Street campus will force several changes in some nearby traffic and parking patterns.
The construction project is expected to take two years, but the end result will be worth the temporary traffic and parking inconveniences, said Maureen Kahn, the president and chief executive officer of the hospital.
The new addition will permit Blessing to move its three inpatient behavioral medicine units from the 14th Street campus to 11th Street, consolidating all inpatient care in one location.
"Moving the inpatient behavioral care to 11th Street gives it the room to meet the growing need, and allows us to maintain the 14th Street campus as an office building rather than a hospital, which will lower the cost of operating the campus," Kahn said.
The price of completing such a project will include the changes in the near future, some temporary and some permanent:
º The intersection of Oak Street at 11th Street will close for the next four months so that it can be reconfigured. Traffic will still be able to head west on Oak Street from 12th Street and reach the Quincy Hospitality House and the Oak Street entrance to the hospital's main parking lot. But traffic will not be able to enter the SIU Healthcare Quincy Family Practice Center parking lot from the corner of 11th and Oak. Traffic will need to access that lot by using College Street to get to 11th Street.
º The patient parking lot directly across Oak Street from the north entrance to the Blessing Cancer Center will close for four months. Patients should use the parking lot across 11th Street from the main hospital entrance.
º Because of the construction zone, the only entrance to the Blessing Cancer Center and to Blessing-Rieman College of Nursing will be through the Cancer Center entrance adjacent to the hospital's main entrance, off the circle driveway at 11th and Spring Street. That entrance will lead to the Cancer Center and to the College of Nusing.
º Oak Street between 10th and 11th Street will close soon and not reopen. As part of the construction project, Oak will end at the main entrance of the new patient care addition.
S.M. Wilson of St. Louis is the project construction manager. The company has been involved in most major Blessing Health System building projects. Much of the work, however, will be done by local contractors and their employees. Ground was broken on the project Aug. 20.
"It was a goal of the Blessing Board of Trustees to involve as many local contractors as possible," said Jerry Jackson, vice president of engineering and facility development for Blessing Corporate Services. "We are exceeding those expectations and pleased with the response of local companies."
Blessing will use $33 million in cash and routine capital investment to pay for the building. The rest of the funds will come from a combination of borrowing and fundraising.
At the heart of the project is the patient room addition that will create 104 new single-bed rooms. Fifty-two of those rooms will be in the new addition with another 52 rooms in Blessing's existing patient room facility being converted into single-bed areas as part of the project.
"I have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from people regarding this improvement," Kahn continued. "Single-bed rooms make hospitalization a bit more comfortable, and increase safety and quality of care through decreased infection risk."
-- seighinger@whig.com/221-3377
The red line superimposed on an aerial shot of Blessing Hospital’s 11th Street campus outlines the area where traffic and parking will be affected during construction of the hospital’s $70 million patient tower.
