Michigan Hospital Project Wins Approval

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The Chelsea Planning Commission has unanimously approved Chelsea Community Hospital’s $60 million, 110,000-square-foot expansion project.

Funds for the construction are being made available through the hospital’s 2009 merger with Saint Joseph Mercy Health System.

The preliminary site plan includes a new two-story building with 48 new private patient rooms and six intensive-care-unit rooms. It is the largest construction project in the hospital’s history.

The expansion will also include a new emergency department with 20 treatment rooms, in-patient physical therapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy areas, cardiac rehabilitation space and in-patient and out-patient radiology. A new conference space, meeting rooms, a small retail and café area and a new pharmacy will also be built. Private patient rooms will now be on the second floor and the current courtyard and fountain will remain.

The current one-story hospital is licensed for 113 beds and that number won’t change after the expansion.

Several buildings will be demolished, including the outpatient behavioral health clinic, which will move to the Clocktower complex in Chelsea. It is expected to open in mid-March.

The new building is slated for completion by September 2012. Renovations for the current hospital building will commence once the new building is finished and will last 18 months.

Final plans for the renovated space are still in the design phase but are expected to include a comprehensive cancer center. The center will complement the infusion suite that opened in the professional building last fall.

A groundbreaking ceremony is slated for March.