BRUNSWICK - Mid Coast Hospital officials on Thursday unveiled plans to begin building
their new "first class" $36.5 million hospital near Cook's Corner. They plan to
start construction this fall and open the hospital in 2001.
"What we're trying to do here is to build the first community hospital from
scratch in the state of Maine in 25 years and we're planning for it to be the
best community hospital in New England," said Charles F. Richelieu, chairman of
the Mid Coast Hospital Building Committee.
The new hospital will be built within an 155-acre wooded area off Bath Road
in the Cook's Corner area of Brunswick. The chosen spot is next to a salt marsh.
Mike L'Abbé, spokesman for Mid Coast Hospital, said the new facility has been
designed to be "one with nature."
Richelieu said the hospital will be 190,000 square feet, allowing it to consolidate
services now provided at the Bath and the Brunswick campuses.
"In addition, it adds a lot of doctors' spaces that we don't now have," said
Richelieu, adding that it will include space for 30 to 40 physicians. The three-story
hospital, which would have three elevators, will be built on a 15-acre plateau,
Richelieu said, with 45 feet of land left undeveloped between its back walls and
the wetlands area for future expansion. If needed, expansion would only occur
to the rear of the building, he said, and the entryway would never change.
The plans include a tower to be built at the entryway. According to Richelieu,
"the tower is an attempt to replicate the sense of a New England town." Mostly
encased in glass, Richelieu said the tower "will be lighted at night, so it will
like a beacon, if you will."
The facility is to include a medical office building with offices for doctors
and administration workers, and an education center offering evening medical classes
and classes on cardiopulmonary rehabilitation. The main building will feature
diagnostic, treatment, surgery, radiology, ultra-sound, emergency and ambulatory
areas on its first floor. The medical surgery unit, the intensive care area, the
women's health area and the locked psychiatric ward are to be located on the main
building's second floor.
"The people in the hospital really do need their rest," said L'Abbé, explaining
that the in-patient services are located on the second floor, away from the daily
out-patient traffic on the first floor, to provide a relaxed atmosphere.
"The people receiving treatment get a feeling of privacy, rather than feeling
that they're being wheeled down a public corridor," Richelieu added.
Richelieu said that a central corridor, which he referred to as the "spine,"
will traverse the length of the hospital, with glass windows installed along one
side to provide a view of the outdoors and help orient visitors as to where they
are in the building.
Describing the spine as "a gathering, a directional, a funneling area," Richelieu
said that hospital facilities will be easily accessed along its length.
The hospital is to have two main parking lots and will be accessed from the
Bath Road by a paved road 24 feet wide and 3,000 feet long. As required by law,
there also will be a gravel road with a gate for fire department access.
The Mid Coast Hospital Building Committee accepted the current hospital plans
on Feb. 3. L'Abbé said that this project "milestone" moves the hospital closer
to completion and makes it "visibly real to all of us."
"We are excited and more than grateful by the outpouring of community support
and interest for this project," he said.
More than $5,760,000 has been raised through the capital campaign, which was
kicked off in the spring of last year, and about $4,250,000 has been accumulated
through equity contributions from hospital surplus, said Richelieu. The remainder
of the costs would be paid through a 30-year bond through the state.
Construction is to begin this fall and is estimated to take 27 months. "We
hope to have it done by the end of 2001," said Richelieu.
He said the current hospital in Brunswick, located adjacent to the Thornton
Oaks retirement community, might be turned into a geriatric and assisted-living
facility. He said the Bath hospital might be rented out, or turned over to some
other activity.
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