A 75-year-old hospital in Minnesota completes its latest makeover
By John Caulfield, Senior Editor
A $52 million expansion of FirstLight Health System, in Mora, Minn., was completed this month by Kraus-Anderson Construction, one of the industry’s leading GCs in the healthcare sector. This multi-phased project, which took 25 months, expanded and renovated about 115,000 sf of the System’s Mora Hospital and Clinic campus, about 75 miles from Minneapolis, that was built in 1943 and had been added to five other times previously.
The renovation, designed by DSGW Architects, features a new main entry and commons for waiting and registration, eye clinic, lab, new infusion/chemotherapy and radiology spaces, IT, offices, and a giftshop.
A two-story addition includes a new rehab space with therapy pool, food service kitchen, cafeteria, and inpatient pharmacy. The addition also has new units for births, medical surgeries and ICU, and new barometric and transformative rooms.
Another two-story addition has a new emergency department, community pharmacy, ambulance garage and fitness center. And a separate one-story addition includes clinical exam rooms.
The project delivered new parking areas and courtyard, a relocation of the facility’s helipad, and improved campus access from Minnesota Highway 65.
The M/E engineer on this project was Obermiller Nelson Engineering, based in Fargo, N.D. Duluth, Minn.-based Northern Consulting Engineers was the SE, and Wenck of Maple Plain, Minn., was the CE.