Construction on an ambulance garage at the new hospital being built on North State Street in St. Ignace has been postponed while Mackinac Straits Hospital continues seeking funds. The hospital has secured about $165,000 of the estimated $500,000 needed for the design and construction.

Construction was initially slated to start this fall, but was postponed owing to a lack of funding, said Rod Nelson, Chief Executive Officer at the hospital. Assuming the necessary funds are raised, construction of the garage is now planned to begin at the same time as the proposed long term care facility in April. If building starts then, he expects the long term care facility to be completed by December, the garage before that. The hospital is also seeking funding to build the long term care unit.

Mr. Nelson hopes the remaining two-thirds of the ambulance garage funds will be obtained through federal emergency services grants.

The 5,673-square-foot facility will have four pull-through double bays allowing eight vehicles to be parked inside. The hospital plans to use half of the space for its own maintenance needs and the other half will be rented to ambulance provider Allied EMS.

"Obviously it would be a huge benefit to have the garage on the hospital campus for a multitude of reasons," Mr. Nelson said. "We are trying to create it as a multi-purpose facility. The goal is to make it as efficient as possible."

The garage will also contain two bedrooms for on-call ambulance and emergency medical staff, a common lounge area, a kitchen, an office, a bathroom, and a storage area. Garage doors on either side of each of the four bays, which are each nearly 59 feet long, will allow ambulances and other vehicles to pull through without backing up, a major improvement over the current facility, Allied EMS coordinator Mark Wilk said.

Other improvements over the old facility are a second on-call bedroom, back-up heating systems, a newer fire safety system, and more space, Mr. Wilk said.

The current ambulance garage, on the corner of Burdette and Hombach streets, is owned by Mackinac County. The building is shared by Allied EMS with the LMAS District Health Department office. Allied has not had a lease agreement, however, since the county paid off the building debt last February.