As many as 150 people at a time will help build the new Medical Center-WKU Health Sciences Complex in the 700 block of First Avenue.
Ground was broken today on the project, which will generate a bevy of activity during the next 13 months as crews from Scott, Murphy & Daniel and subcontractors go to work on the 73,000-square-foot building.
Company President Mike Murphy said it will be a tight deadline to meet. “Plus we’ve got the winter to contend with,” he said.
Work will begin as soon as possible. During that time those workers will be joining an already large workforce from The Medical Center campus – about 2,000 – many of whom will eat in nearby restaurants for lunch.
“Hardly anybody brings their lunch anymore,” Murphy said.
The workforce downtown will grow again when Western Kentucky University occupies the building, bringing in staff for its School of Nursing and two new programs: the doctor of physical therapy and doctor of nursing practice.
Connie Smith, president and chief executive officer of Commonwealth Health Corp., The Medical Center’s parent company, said the hospital also will use about 20 percent of the building’s space for staff training and other purposes.
Smith told the 300 people gathered for the groundbreaking that CHC and WKU came together to “to solve what separately seemed insurmountable” – a critical shortage of nurses.
WKU President Gary Ransdell said the university will double the number of nurses it can educate, growing even more the number of WKU graduates who find jobs at The Medical Center and other area hospitals.
And it shouldn’t be a problem getting students to fill the new slots since WKU turns away about half the qualified applicants who apply each year, he said.
Ransdell said WKU turns away the students because it doesn’t have the space or staff to accommodate them and doesn’t have the bonding capacity to construct a new building on its own.
The doctor of physical therapy program will begin next year with its first 30 students – that also will help solve a critical problem in the region, Ransdell said.
More nursing homes, hospitals and small communities are without physical therapists at a time when many in the aging population could use such help.
Construction of the $18.4 million three-story building will likely put investment in the Tax Increment Financing District over the top of the $150 million required before tax revenues can begin coming back to the community. Those tax revenues help provide infrastructure for such projects and allow developers to get a return on their investments.
Smith said the project will be ready for occupancy in fall 2013, in time for WKU to begin the semester in the building.
“And I know you will have us in on time ... and even early,” Smith said to Murphy.
WKU will lease its space from CHC for 25 years, and CHC will use that money for operational expenses and to help pay off industrial revenue bonds that will be sold for the project.
While there are no immediate plans to make the building even larger, it has been designed to accommodate future expansion needs.
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