The master plan for the new hospital campus shows the main hospital currently under construction to the right and the walkway connecting the proposed long-term care facility to the rear of the hospital. The plans also show an emergency medical services building and two assisted living cottages behind long-term care. The hospital board envisions these being added eventually, although funding has not yet been secured. The United States Department of Agriculture is currently reviewing a $5 million loan application to pay for construction of the long-term care facility, which the hospital hopes to begin before the end of the year. (Design by Bowers and Rein) The St. Ignace Planning Commission, at its Wednesday, September 30, meeting, approved a site plan for a long-term care facility to be built behind the new hospital under construction on North State Street

Funding has not yet been secured for the project, but the hospital did submit an application for a $5 million U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development loan in September. Approval of such a loan can take between 60 and 90 days, according to the USDA.

Anticipating the loan will be approved, architects and construction crews are preparing to begin construction, since the hospital hopes to pour a foundation before winter.

The design for the single-floor, 29,900-square-foot facility calls for four wings with 48 private bedrooms and a center hall or "main street" with a dining room, activity center, beauty shop, and exercise room.

Scott Bowers, president of Bowers and Rein, the Ann Arbor architects heading up the design of the proposed long-term care building, said they are designing the new facility with a "northern lodge" feel, complete with gabled roofs and stone-surrounded pillars.

An eight-foot-wide glass and metal walled walkway would connect the main hospital to the proposed long-term care unit, running from the second floor of the hospital to the ground floor of long-term care, which sits up a hill from the two-story main hospital.

Other features of the proposed facility include a fenced-in courtyard and patio area and a possible raised garden area for residents to do their own gardening. Nurse stations will be in each of the four corridors, and administrative offices will be near the walkway leading to the main hospital.

Included in the master plan for the hospital campus are three other proposed buildings, for which funding has not yet been secured. Two 9,572-square-foot assisted living facilities and an ambulance maintenance garage are pictured on the plan at the very rear of the property, although the hospital has not decided if and when these may be constructed.

Some concerns about entry and exit roads for emergency and delivery vehicles were brought up by commissioners at the meeting. One such entry is planned through an easement granted by the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, which owns the parcel of land south of the hospital. This exit would allow ambulances and other emergency vehicles to enter and exit State Street from Alpine Street, which will connect to a driveway that ends at the hospital's emergency ambulance entrance.

Another secondary entrance, in addition to the main public entrance on State Street, will be the driveway running along the north side of the property, which exits to North Airport Road. Some commissioners expressed concern over the state of this city-maintained road, which would serve delivery vehicles bound for the delivery entrance on the north of the main hospital and may serve emergency vehicles accessing the proposed maintenance garage.

City Manager Eric Dodson said the city is looking into funding opportunities to re-pave the stretch of North Airport Road from State Street to the rear hospital entrance, but no construction plans have been made.

"We have had conversations with the USDA about possible funding," Mr. Dodson said. "Our goal would be to fund it with grant money instead of loans that would need to be paid back. It is my position that it should be a class-A, beefed-up road for trucks and whatever comes down there."

Commissioner Fred Strich asked representatives from the architect and contractor if funding is in place for the long-term care facility, and asked if the builders have a back-up plan in case less funding is released.

Mr. Bowers said they do have some ideas in case they need to reduce the facility's cost at the last minute.

"We're working on back-up plans right now," he said. "We've left it fairly spacious. What we would probably do is decrease the size of the building a little bit and change some of the interior motifs that we're trying to work with."

In-floor, radiant heating has been designed into the project, something Mr. Bowers said they think is best for the residents who will be living there, but said eliminating that could provide additional cost-saving if necessary.

"Those are the kind of things we will be tweaking around if the numbers change," he said.

Jayme Couchene, the assistant project manager from general contractor Skanska, said if construction of the long-term care facility begins on schedule this fall, the project could be complete by late summer or early fall in 2010, about half a year after the new hospital is scheduled to open its doors.