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Snoqualmie Valley Hospital is scrapping its plans for a $10 million expansion and will go forward with building a new facility two miles from its current location, officials said this week.
The hospital's board of commissioners approved a purchase-and-sale agreement earlier this month to buy a 71-acre site at Route 18 and Interstate 90. The spot offers more visibility and easier access from the freeway, officials said.
The board's action gives the hospital first dibs on the land, plus about three to four months to study whether the site would be appropriate for a new facility, said administrator Rodger McCollum.
If not, there would be no financial loss to the hospital, he said. "But everything so far looks like it's going to lend itself to having a hospital campus on those 71 acres," McCollum said.
The hospital now sits on a 48-acre wooded hillside off Southeast North Bend Way in Snoqualmie, hidden from view. There is no offramp to the hospital from westbound Interstate 90, and the winding road to the facility doesn't offer easy access for emergency-response vehicles, officials say.
A new campus, they add, will bolster the profile of the hospital, which has endured financial setbacks and two closings during its 24-year history.
The 28-bed hospital near North Bend was on track to embark on an expansion last year, but officials switched gears after realizing that the additions wouldn't be adequate to suit the growing needs of the community, said Commissioner Dick Jones.
"For what we want to do, it would be better if we had a different setup," Jones said. "Medicine is changing. There's more day surgery and outpatient care. You have to look where medicine is going."
Rough estimates put the price of the project at $35 million, Jones said. The money would likely come from the sale of the hospital's current site — which Jones said could be worth $30 million to $40 million — and a mix of public and private funding, he added. It could be completed by 2010, he said, "if all the pieces fall into place."
The hospital is part of King County Hospital District No. 4, which serves about 45,000 residents in an area from Preston to North Bend and generates more than $2 million in taxes.
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