St. Bernards expansion on track to complete $130 million investment by 2019

A $130 million construction project in downtown Jonesboro is picking up steam, with plans already being made for the future, an official with St. Bernards Healthcare said Thursday (April 21).

St. Bernards Vice President for Senior and Affiliated Services Kevin Hodges spoke to Talk Business and Politics about the four-phase expansion project, which is expected to be completed by 2019. Hospital officials announced in December plans for the project. The first phase, which is about 70% complete, involves a $9 million expansion for the cancer treatment center at St. Bernards.

Hodges said the expansion will put the hospital’s medical oncologists and other cancer related programs under one roof. The $8 million second phase, with about 70% of the design work complete, will expand the hospital’s heart care center and allow doctors to be able to use services like cardiac catheterization.

“Construction will start this spring,” Hodges said of the second phase, which will add two new catherization labs, a waiting area and a pre and post-recovery area for patients.

The other two phases – a $75 million project to build a 245,000-square-foot, three level facility with an emergency helipad and a $28 million, 205,000-square foot renovation project – are in the planning stages. Hodges said construction for the third phase, which will build a new intensive care unit and surgical tower, will begin in late 2017 while the fourth phase is slated to begin in 2019.

Last year, hospital officials said the tower will have 14 surgery rooms on the first level, a 40-bed critical care facility on the second level as well as labs and a pharmacy. Hodges said the hospital already has a helipad on the fifth floor, which will still be used for the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.

“The new helipad will have better access next to the emergency room,” Hodges said, noting the hospital serves patients in 23 counties in the region.

Hodges said Nabholz Construction crews in Jonesboro have worked in the past few months to help build the new facilities. The crews have included bricklayers, flooring and electrical workers.

“Nabholz is local and we have worked to help support our local economy,” Hodges said of the work.

Hospital officials said last year that funding for the project would be covered through existing capital with nearly a quarter of the cost being financed with a loan from First Security Bank.

Hodges said the construction will open up opportunities for people to work at the hospital. Right now, several Arkansas State University nursing students do their rotations at the hospital. Hodges said the program has helped students to further their education, with another project in the works. The project – to create an internal medicine residency program – will start this summer with about five to seven medical students a year.

Hodges said the three-year project will provide two main goals: recruiting new doctors for the area and helping to train high quality physicians.