Fairfield Hospital board gave approval for East Texas Medical Center to start the first part of a remodeling/building project at the hospital that ultimately will cost an estimated $15 million.

Costs for the project will be borne by ETMC which has leased the facility since 1998 and has extended the lease through 2018.

Approval to proceed given by the hospital district is much like the landlord of a rental house giving permission to a renter to repaint the house at the renter’s expense.

“ETMC is funding this project in its entirety,” hospital administrator Raz Cook says.

In other business, the hospital district board elected a new chairman and vice chairman, and filled a board vacancy by appointment.

The FHD board met last week with architects Steve Fitzpatrick and Dan Polanchek, ETMC system facilities director Robert Layton and ETMC architect Nori Umemoto.

Opening the meeting with a historical overview of the project was FHD executive assistant Larry Ivy.

“A lot of work has gone into this project up to now,” he points out.

The hospital district has remodeled, upgraded and repaired the facility since about 2002 and has looked at options that included consideration of building a new hospital.

Ivy notes that the price tag to build a new hospital is about $40 million, almost three times as much as the plans presented by ETMC.

Polanchek and Fitzpatrick say that the basic structure of the Fairfield hospital is sound, lending itself to remodeling and expansion.

The architects presented three phases of work, expanding the emergency medicine department, building a structure to house physicians’ offices, administrative offices and outpatient services, and adding a 10-bed patient wing.

FHS board members unanimously gave their approval for ETMC to proceed with the emergency department expansion and construction of the medical building.

Construction of those phases will take 18-20 months once plans are finalized.

In the presentation last week, exterior renderings and floorplans for first the two phases were presented, with options.

A master plan for the hospital grounds has been in the works for about four years, starting with construction of a front entry canopy in 2006.

The architects’ drawings show the front canopy replicated at the entries to the emergency department and medical building, defining the entrances.

A design option favored by the board is to top each canopy with a translucent pyramid which will draw more attention to hospital entry points. Another option, which was rejected, was to make the top of the canopies barrel shaped.

Polanchek reports that ETMC hospital designs are unique to the community in which they are located, whether that be brand new construction or remodeling.

“ETMC never comes into town and puts up a postage stamp facility,” he says “It takes time to work to the right thing.”

The emergency department will be expanded to include 10 private treatment rooms, a larger waiting area and a canopy to protect walk-in patients going to the emergency room.

Polanchek says that the area is being overbuilt to accommodate future growth.

One result of expanding the emergency department is the need to relocate some hospital administrative offices, which will go to the new medical building to be located in an area now occupied by a building housing cardiac rehabilitation services.

The existing building on the west side of the main hospital will be demolished and a new structure containing space for eight physicians, large waiting room, hospital administrative offices and medical outpatient services will be constructed. The new building is to contain 21,000 square feet and connect with the main hospital.

“You are truly giving patients one building for all their health care. You are bringing it all back under one roof,” Polanchek says.

Doctors now officing at the nearby First Physicians Clinic will be moved to the new medical building.

The architects report that their design work allows for future expansion as needed.

Fitzpatrick says the next step in the process is to get the plans engineered and produce construction drawings, processes which are already underway.

The FHD board stopped short of approving construction of a new 10-bed patients wing, and remodeling existing patient rooms. The remodeling would consist of gutting 20 rooms and converting them into 10 larger rooms, retaining a total of 20 rooms when work is complete.

Although ETMC is footing the construction bill, the FHD board last year agreed to cover $1 million per year in indigent care costs that were borne by ETMC, a move that freed up funds for the building project.

Ivy points out that when the hospital district was formed it assessed property taxes at a rate of 12 cents per $100 assessed valuation, and has dropped that rate to 3.659 cents per $100.

Elected FHD board president is Fairfield attorney George Robinson, and Jeff Taylor is the new vice chairman.

The board voted to appoint Andy Awalt to serve until November to fill a post made vacant by the recent death of board chairman Monte Cole.