FARGO, ND-Sanford Health, based in Sioux Falls, SD, has its sights set on a new 371-room medical center along Interstate 94 for $360 million, a replacement of most of its facilities downtown. The company is also spending more than $240 million on other projects throughout the Dakotas and northern Minnesota, including a new $60 million hospital in Thief River Falls, MN.
Dennis Millirons, president of the current facility, tells GlobeSt.com that his hospital is outdated and has design limitations, and the new 700,000-square-foot Sanford Fargo facility, on 100 acres southwest of the downtown, will accommodate new growth. Also, almost 60% of the current hospital’s patients come from outside the downtown.
The new facility is also on higher ground, he says. “Each year the Red River gets a lot of runoff water flowing into Canada, and we get spring flooding. The city doesn’t have a way to divert the water, so there’s a series of levies and dykes. Our current facility has potential to flood because of the elevation,” Millirons says.
The planned 11-story facility will house Sanford’s medical and surgical services, emergency medicine and four Centers of Excellence, for disciplines including the heart, children’s, women’s and orthopedics/sports medicine. The hospital will have 30 operating rooms, 10 heart labs, 40 emergency treatment/trauma rooms, 300 clinic exams and space for 200 physicians and 2,700 employees.
Millirons says he will be the president of the new hospital when it opens in 2016. About 60% of the departments at the current property will move to the new digs, he says. After the new facility opens, the downtown facility will get a new $30 million renovation that will also create a standalone cancer Centers of Excellence building.
This construction is just part of the roughly $600 million in new and renovated buildings the company has under construction or in the planning stage. Other projects include a $60 million new hospital in Thief River Falls, MN and a new $100 million Edith Sanford Breast Cancer Center in Sioux Falls, SD.
The new hospitals going up around the country are to meet the needs of the Baby Boomers, Millirons says. “We’re beginning on the front end of what should be much higher use of health care services, and there’s not a lot of residual capacity,” he says. “There was a bit of a hesitation in 2008-9, as the ability to do projects froze with the pull-back of the bond market. But we’re a good $2.4-billion company with good credit and good bond ratings, we’re able to finance our projects and move forward.”
Sanford has a presence in 112 communities in seven states. The company is also in the process of developing an international clinic in Ireland. Sanford includes 34 hospitals, 116 clinic locations and more than 900 physicians in 70 specialty areas of medicine.
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free ALM Digital Reader.
Once you are an ALM Digital Member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
*May exclude premium content© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
