MOSES LAKE — The new Samaritan Hospital should officially become the property of the hospital district Dec. 12. Consultant Joe Kunkel said Tuesday the first day of operation has been determined. 

“From today, we’re 129 days from seeing our first patient, on March 7,” Kunkel said Tuesday evening. 

Construction of the $225 million building is on time, Kunkel said, and it’s within the budget. Construction began in October 2023. The project is being paid for with a mix of loans from the US Department of Agriculture and a $130 million construction bond approved by voters in April 2023. Damon Gardella of the Klosh Group, the project manager, said the heating-cooling systems are being tested, the last entry-exit systems are being ordered and landscaping is underway. 

The exception is the laboratory; commissioners approved a request to upgrade some lab equipment, which will require modifications to the electrical and heating-cooling systems. The cost of the changes is about $265,000.  

That work won’t be completed until after most of the rest of the building is done, which means that section will be turned over to the district after the rest of the building, Gardella said.  

Hospital district commissioners added a storage building to the project in 2024, and construction on that is also almost complete, Kunkel said. The storage building’s windows are in, the sidewalks and parking lot are complete and the interior finishing work has started.  

“Now we’re doing the rough-in and drywall in the building,” he said. “Pretty straightforward.” 

The building will have an in-house cafe, and the design of that is still being determined. 

“This is not going to affect the opening of the building or anything like that, but the design is taking a little longer than we anticipated,” Gardella said.  

There’s still a list of inspections before the building can open, starting with a Moses Lake Fire Department inspection scheduled for mid-November, Kunkel said. The Department of Health inspection is scheduled for early December.  

Training in the new building is scheduled to begin in January; the goal is to make sure employees are as familiar with the new building as possible before it opens, Kunkel said. New equipment is being installed, so employees have to be trained on it, he said; the MLFD and other agencies that bring patients to Samaritan have to become familiar with it as well. The same thing is true of other emergency services like air transport. 

Installation of computers and other technological equipment is already underway, he said, and furniture installation is scheduled for early December. Exterior signs will start going up in early December, he said, but will be covered to avoid any confusion. Hospital employees are going around town looking for signs that direct people to the hospital, to ensure old ones are removed and new ones installed to send people to the right place.