MOSES LAKE — Construction crews have started pouring the concrete slab on the second floor of the Samaritan Hospital.

“This is your first concrete slab that’s not on the ground,” said Damon Gardella of the Klosh Group, part of the construction management team. 

Joe Kunkel, consultant on the hospital project, said Feb. 27 that the steel supports for all three floors should be installed by mid-April. 

“It’s going quick,” Gardella said.

With that in mind, construction crews are going to keep working despite delays in the Washington Department of Health review process. Kunkel explained the options for Samaritan commissioners during a recent meeting.

The DOH reviewers examine most of the project, from the fire sprinkler system to the emergency management plan. Reviewers ask questions that the applicants, Samaritan, in this case, must answer. When they’ve got the answers, DOH officials give the authorization to proceed with construction. Kunkel said construction projects usually go through multiple reviews.

But substantial staff turnover at DOH means the agency is lagging behind on the reviews. Kunkel said that poses a challenge.

“We’re moving forward,” Kunkel said. “(The project has) authorization to begin construction and we have received that through (installing) the structural steel.”

The structural steel will be installed pretty soon, Kunkel said, and the next phase of the DOH review probably won’t be finished by then.

Samaritan finished its first review, Kunkel said, and there are a number of other projects out there that aren’t that far along. Kunkel said DOH officials have told him there are a lot of applications and reviews ahead of Samaritan.

“(Samaritan) is far down the list,” Kunkel said. “That’s the reality. Because they have so many projects.”

Construction can continue even if the DOH review isn’t finished, and Kunkel said that’s what the construction managers are recommending. The risk is that something may have to be torn out and rebuilt if it doesn’t pass the review.

“Our options (are), we say ‘Well, can either move forward at risk awaiting the next round of comments.’ (Or) we could pause construction until the next round of comments, and we don’t know when that will be. We do not think that’s a good idea,” Kunkel said. “Our recommendation is to proceed at risk.”

Kunkel said he doesn’t think it’s much of a risk.

“Our belief is the risk here is very low, because you have that first round of (questions) that we’ve already responded to. We (know) what those issues are, and we know which ones are significant and which ones aren’t,” Kunkel said.

There’s always the chance that DOH would ask for changes, Kunkel said, whether the review process was on schedule or not.

Gardella said construction crews will still be working on the parts of the project that have been approved for a couple of months. 

“The first item on the list that would really affect us is, timewise, quite a ways down the road - 60 days plus. So we’ll have time,” he said. 

Samaritan commissioners approved a change in the fee for ZGF, the architectural firm designing the project. The feed was increased by about $24,700. Kunkel said that was necessary because the original design included the Grant County morgue, and that piece has been removed.

The existing Samaritan Hospital includes the morgue, and that was the plan for the new hospital. But Grant County officials have opted to build a standalone coroner’s office near the new hospital, but not as part of it.

“It sounds easy on paper, Just remove the building footprint,” Gardella said. “But there were a lot of utilities, sidewalks, landscaping, things like that, that accommodated that building sitting there. Now when you take that out, you have to undo everything that you did. So there is some work involved there.”

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.

    Construction on the new Samaritan Hospital has come a long way since this photo was taken on January 9.
  

    A great deal of site prep had been done as of January 16 of this year at the new hospital's location.