PORT ANGELES — Olympic Medical Center’s new medical office building at Race and Georgiana streets will dedicate 42,000 square feet of exam rooms, doctors’ offices, labs and storage space to the health of East Clallam County.
It also will boost the financial health of the medical center itself, said CEO Eric Lewis.
Whereas the largest health care facility on the North Olympic Peninsula once had a mix of 80 percent inpatients and 20 percent outpatients, that ratio has nearly reversed itself over the past 13 years, Lewis said Wednesday.
Lewis spoke as he and the architects of the $15.3 million project unveiled drawings and floor plans to commissioners of Clallam County Public Hospital District 2.
The fact is, Lewis said, OMC has evolved from a traditional hospital into a provider of primary care and specialty outpatient services.
And it’s run out of places to put them.
“If we had three primary care doctors show up tomorrow who want to practice here, we would not have room for them,” Lewis said about the family practitioners whom OMC eagerly recruits.
The new facility will help the medical center enlist such doctors and other professionals, he said.
It also will combine under one roof clinics currently housed in four separate buildings, provide more parking and make it safer to cross Caroline Street from the hospital to the medical offices.
Planned since last September, the new building will occupy the corner of Race and Georgiana streets, backing onto Race Street and facing parking lots to the east toward Washington Street between Caroline and Georgiana streets.
The plan calls for Caroline Street between Race and Washington streets to be closed to provide pedestrian paths between the hospital and the office building.
The Port Angeles City Council will consider May 5 approving OMC’s purchase of Caroline Street along the north side of the site and an alley that currently runs through it.
OMC has offered $288,750 — the appraised rate of $15 per square foot — for the street and the alley.
Construction will start at the Race Street edge of the site and move east, including relocating a sewer line to the edge of the property and burying utility wires.
Existing buildings will be razed as construction demands.
Outside, glass walls will allow visitors “to see in and feel safe,” said project manager Robbie McNamara of Rice Fergus Miller architects of Bremerton, although exam rooms will have opaque walls.
Wood facing on a central tower will give a feeling of warmth, he said, and the building’s gray exterior with red accents will reflect the existing hospital that was built in 1965.
Inside, 60 exam rooms and related doctors’ offices and waiting areas will be grouped into three “neighborhoods” differentiated by color schemes of gold, blue or brown, and by artistic themes drawn from North Olympic Peninsula vistas of mountains, woodlands or water.
A walk-in clinic will occupy the south wing of the first floor with a central reception area to the north. X-ray equipment and an orthopedic clinic will fill the rest of the floor.
Stairs and elevators for patients will be housed in a two-story wood-faced tower. Exam rooms will take up the second floor. The rooftop may include a staff outdoor rest area.
“This is a great opportunity for people to say, ‘Wow, this is a modern facility,’” McNamara said.
Lewis said he hoped plans will be completed by May 18, construction bids will be accepted June 22 and work will start in July and last 13 months.
To keep patients oriented, “everything is same-handed as you walk into an exam room,” McNamara said.
The entire building will comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, including a maximum 2 percent grade on walkways. The front entrance area will have no curb, only a ridge to alert sight-impaired patients.
At least two exam rooms will have 42-inch-wide doors to accommodate patients in wheelchairs. All the exam rooms will have scales to reduce patients’ moving from room to room.
Lewis said OMC expects the new office building to improve patients’ access to care and boost its quality, but also to ensure the medical center’s survival in a competitive health care environment.
“If we don’t have these facilities to have local services,” he said, “we will have troubles financially.”
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
