New QVMC about halfway to opening day

QUINCY — After 11 months, the new Quincy Valley Medical Center is about halfway to its opening day.

Groundbreaking on the project was September 2023, and Project Manager Joe Kunkel said the new QVMC will be open for business early next summer.

“I was at the (QVMC) board meeting last week, and I told them at that time we were roughly 300 days from seeing our first patient,” Kunkel said. “So it’s going to be here really fast.”

Kunkel said the hospital has progressed from a metal skeleton to a recognizable building.

“There’s a lot of stuff happening out there (on the site). The siding is going up, the windows are being installed. All the curbing for parking lots and for driveways and all that stuff is in. The majority of anything that’s underground is done,” Kunkel said. “They started drywall in the (Sageview) clinic area this month. We’re still moving along as we should be.

“We should be, pretty soon, starting to lay down some asphalt (in the new parking lot). I know they’ve started doing work on the helipad,” Kunkel said.

Construction crews have installed an underground system that will eliminate snow and ice on the helipad.

“We’re (doing) some work around all the equipment planning – when is equipment arriving, when is the furniture arriving, and all that coordination,” Kunkel said. “Because some (equipment), things that are fixed into the building, like a CT (scanner). That’s anchored — you're going to need that before you do some of the finish work to make sure it goes into the room.”

Planning is required to reduce the time equipment and supplies spend exposed to the weather and dust, Kunkel said.

“That part of the world has some pretty amazing dust. It’s so fine,” he said. “So what you would see is, when they were delivering the ductwork, both ends were sealed off just so there was no dust in them.”

Construction is far enough along that QVMC staff has started planning for the move to the new building. The plan is to establish a tentative opening date and announce it by December, Kunkel said.

Hospital construction is overseen by the Washington Department of Health, and construction started before DOH had completed its reviews of the plans. Kunkel told QVMC board members last fall there was a small risk that the DOH reviews could require some work to be redone, but Kunkel said so far that hasn’t happened.

The next round of DOH responses is scheduled to arrive next week, he said.

The existing QVMC will be demolished once the new building is open and operating. Kunkel the new hospital will be operational by July 2025, and the whole project should be complete by September next year.

“We’ve got one more winter to go in the (existing) building,” he said. “It still has some life left in it.”