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Work gears up for new MaineGeneral hospital

By Betty Adams badams@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer

The new regional hospital is taking shape -- at least on paper and in intent-to-award-contract letters.

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Even as officials at MaineGeneral Medical Center and the parent organization MaineGeneral Health pursue financing for the $312 million regional inpatient facility, architects, engineers and builders are working together to ensure speedy delivery of the physical plant in a process known as integrated project delivery.

"IPD is a much better way to get a better quality project," said Chuck Hays, president and chief executive officer of MaineGeneral Medical Center. "It brings the major subcontractors into the design project."

Integrated project delivery, a newer style of project delivery where architects and engineers and the major subcontractors "work as a team to deliver the best product for the lowest overall cost and highest quality," said Denis St. Pierre, director of project management and estimating for E.S. Boulos Company, Inc. "It's very goal-oriented."

The Westbrook-based E.S. Boulos will be doing the $27 million in electrical work at the new regional hospital site, which is between the Harold Alfond Center for Cancer Care and Exit 113 of Interstate 95. E.S. Boulos is one of the many contractors working through "letters of intent to award." Formal contracts are expected to be finalized later.

The regional hospital is slated to have 192 inpatient beds, and to replace inpatient operations at MaineGeneral Medical Center's Thayer campus in Waterville, as well as all operations at the South Chestnut Street hospital in Augusta.

Plans call for the Thayer unit to get a $10 million upgrade and remain open as an outpatient facility with a 24-hour emergency room.

Hospital spokeswoman Diane Peterson listed the companies working on the integrated project delivery team for the new hospital: construction managers HP Cummings Construction Company, of Winthrop, and Robins and Morton of Birmingham, Ala.; architects/engineers SMRT, which has offices in Portland, and TRO/Jung Brannen, and mechanical joint contractor Johnson and Jordan of Scarborough and MMC Corporation of Kansas City. The drywall joint venture partners are Porter Drywall and Dirigo Drywall, both of Portland, Zimba Company of Fairfield and Landry and Sons Acoustics of Lewiston.

Cives Steel of Augusta will supply the steel and Sargent Corp., of Stillwater will be the site contractor.

"We have made selections of the major subcontractors and are very conscious of employing local people as much as possible," Peterson said.

Many of those same firms worked on the $42 million Harold Alfond Center for Cancer Care, an outpatient facility which opened several months ahead of schedule in July 2007.

"We've developed a letter of intent so we can pay them to have input into the design of our new regional hospital," Hays said.

He said the system should result in a process that goes more smoothly and has fewer change orders.

Hays said passers-by should see some evidence of the hospital construction in July, when he expects funding to be finalized.

The new regional hospital is projected to take three years to build, and the project is expected to employ about 400 people.

St. Pierre said he expects E.S. Boulos to have between 25 and 35 workers at the hospital site for about two years.

The electrical project will be managed by Lescar Beane, senior project manager; Rob Coates, assistant project manager; Tom Clements, project engineer, and John Fedorovich, superintendent.

E.S. Boulos also has worked on projects at the hospital's Waterville site as well as the Augusta hospital.

The hospital also has detailed John Milbrand, MaineGeneral Health construction manager, and Paul Stein, director of support services for MaineGeneral, to work on the project.

In the meantime, Hays said, hospital officials hope to hear that members of the state's congressional delegation have secured funding for a full interchange at Exit 113 to allow a more direct access to the hospital site.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, cited the project last Thursday when addressing U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who was testifying before a subcommittee on the department's fiscal year 2012 budget request.

"In Maine's capital city of Augusta, a new regional hospital is being constructed just yards from Interstate 95," she said. "There is, however, no convenient way to exit the interstate and arrive at the new hospital. The hospital, the state and the local community have all pledged funding for this project. We should ensure funding is available for smaller and rural communities where there is local support and committed funding for these needs."

And community members are gearing up for a public phase of fundraising for the hospital. So far, the group, which hopes to raise $10 million, has concentrated on behind-the-scenes work.

"I think it's going great," Hays said.