Watertown, New York ----- At a meeting on August 27 th, the Board of Trustees for Samaritan Medical Center authorized hospital management to engage HBE Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri, the nation’s leading design/build firm for healthcare facilities, to complete the parking garage and Patient Pavilion, Phases I and II of its multimillion-dollar expansion and modernization plan.

“HBE’s design/build approach affords us the benefit of a guaranteed cost for the design and construction of the parking garage and Patient Pavilion,” explains John Wheeler, Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Samaritan Medical Center. “As Trustees, we have a responsibility to our community to ensure completion of every phase of this much-needed project and to achieve all of the objectives outlined in our Facility Master Plan. At the same time, we must be fiscally responsible, so that this project is affordable for both the short- and long-term.”

Using the design/build approach, HBE Corporation has proposed a guaranteed cost of $51 million for the parking garage and Patient Pavilion, which will be constructed at the same time and within the hospital’s original budget. Most importantly, all of the functional and programmatic elements are addressed, such as a parking structure, a new emergency department, new surgical suites, new ICU/PCU, and private patient rooms on the medical/surgical units.

“We are pleased with the progress that has been made on this project to date, and the anticipation is growing as we get closer to breaking ground,” concludes Mr. Wheeler. “The SmithGroup’s expertise and experience provided us with a comprehensive Facility Master Plan, preliminary schematic drawings, and development of early designs to address our functional and programmatic needs. And now we’ve locked in the first two phases within budget, taking us one step closer to seeing the completion of the largest expansion project in Samaritan’s 125 year history.”

In addition to the parking garage and Patient Pavilion, other phases of construction include renovations to the current SMC facility and SKH renovations, which include a connection between SMC and SKH.

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