Twitter
Facebook
Amid a large number of both completed and on-going construction
projects at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the biggest is one year
in the making and possibly still years away.
Talks of a three-story tower at LRMC are resurfacing. The tower would
make all patient wards, operating rooms and an Intensive Care Unit more
easily accessible by eliminating the spread out fingers of the
hospital’s spine and rib design. The projected cost of the tower is
$200 million.
A medical planning team came Thursday to discuss the tower again. They
sat down with members of the staff to discuss how health care at LRMC
is done today and how they want to do it in the future, said
Michael Arseneau, chief of LRMC Facilities Management.
If everything is approved and funding is given by Congress, a two-year
design process would begin in 2009, with construction in 2011, followed
by a four-year construction process, he said. However, tower talks have
been ongoing for more than a decade.
Facilities Management currently has 49 on-going projects valued at $39
million. Of that money, $17 million is going to renovate U.S. Army
Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine – Europe. The rest,
however, goes to LRMC for projects like Department of Medicine
renovation ($1.8 million); construction of a Women’s Health Clinic
($1.2 million); and a complete kitchen overhaul ($1.1 million). The
kitchen will be gutted completely, with every piece of equipment being
replaced.
With all of the completed and on-going projects, one might think the
facilities team would run out of things to build and renovate, but that
is not the case.
“You would think we’d be able to stop for a bit and catch our breath,
but we can’t,” said Mr. Arseneau. “Landstuhl will continue to
grow and there is always a new project that needs to be done.”
