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AVH Master Plan - Newspaper Articles Aspen Valley Hospital has big plansby Brent Gardner-Smith, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer Tuesday, May 27, 2008 Aspen Valley Hospital has big plans to renovate and expand its current facility, which dates back to 1977. The facility on lower Castle Creek Road could grow from its current 75,700 square feet to a total of 291,000 square feet — nearly four times its size — including a three-story parking garage that alone adds 76,000 square feet to the total package. (This figure differs from the previously reported figure of 209,000 square feet, which does not include basement space or the parking garage.) The new construction wraps around nearly all sides of the hospital's current building and will result in what the hospital hopes will resemble a tasteful "village of structures." In February, the hospital submitted a master plan proposal to the city of Aspen, which annexed the 23-acre hospital property in 2003. The project is expected to cost $100 million, which will be financed by a combination of savings, debt and public tax money (see related story on hospital finance). The plan has four phases and all work takes place on six acres on the south end of a distinct 19-acre parcel of land, which also includes the hospital CEO's residence and the building that houses Pitkin County Senior Services and Whitcomb Terrace, the hospital's assisted living facility. The first phase is nearly complete and relied on prior approvals from Pitkin County. It includes a new obstetrics department with 5,700 square feet of new space and 4,252 square feet of renovated space. The second phase includes the 234-space parking garage, which would be placed between the road and the existing hospital parking lot. A new "loop" road around the hospital is also proposed for the second phase. The road would begin at the current senior center driveway and then wind around the back of the hospital, providing access to two loading docks and an ambulance garage. Also as part of the second phase, the number of hospital rooms will grow from 16 to 27 and a variety of departments would gain new space, including intensive care, same-day surgery and the cardiopulmonary area, as well as the reception area, cafeteria and gift shop. The third phase includes a new rooftop helipad for emergency medical transport, an expansion of the emergency room and 18,000 square feet of new leased medical office space. The final phase includes a new entrance "atrium" and patient drop-off area as well as other improvements. The hospital expects to soon review several key issues with the city, including the size and visual impact of the parking garage along Castle Creek Road, which would reconfigure the parking at the hospital from today's total of 185 spaces to 339. "The Hospital is well aware of the community's aversion to overly large and imposing structures that block views of the mountains or fail to blend into the site," states the hospital's land-use application, which was prepared by former Pitkin County commissioner and planner Leslie Lamont, who today runs Lamont Planning Services, LLC. Today, most visitors to the hospital probably don't even notice the hillside between Castle Creek Road and the northeastern side of the hospital. That would change under the plan, both because of the size of the parking garage but also because "a row of large aspen and spruce trees next to the east side of the building must be eliminated for the construction of Phase II and the garage," the plan states. The hospital is also eager for an upfront discussion with the city about employee housing. First, it wants credit for the employee housing it has developed or purchased in the past. The hospital voluntarily built 21 rental units at its Mountain Oaks complex near the hospital and purchased the former Beaumont Lodge in Aspen that has 25 rental units. Second, it wants a special analysis of employee generation. Typically, the city assigns a number of new employees based on an increase in the size of any given facility. The hospital wants the city to consider the seasonal nature of its business, as it has more employees on site during the busy winter and summer tourist seasons. It also wants consideration for what it is calling "decompression." It argues that just because its employees will no longer be "compressed" into tight working spaces doesn't mean it will also be adding new employees. City planners in the past have rejected such arguments, reasoning that if the hospital, in this case, ever relocated, it could be replaced by another large employer who would not have to provide new employee housing for simply purchasing an existing facility. Another reason the discussion may be contentious is that the new medical office space could alone potentially require mitigation for 46 new employees. "It is important for the Hospital to understand, at this conceptual level, that the City will accept housing credits and for there to be agreement regarding the methodology for calculating the number of employees generated and what mitigation level will be required of this essential community facility," the hospital's land-use application states. Much has changed since the hospital was moved to Castle Creek Road in 1977 from its old location near the Hunter Creek apartments. While annual hospital admissions have actually dropped from 1,716 in 1977 to 1,630 in 2007, outpatient visits have increased to 34,291 from 11,665. The emergency room has gotten busier too, with visits climbing to 9,193 last year from 4,857 in 1977. And technology has changed use patterns at the hospital. Last year, the hospital performed 9,222 computed tomography, or CT, scans which provide doctors with a three-dimensional X-ray of patients. That number is up from zero CT scans in 1977. New AVH birth center taking shape by Brent Gardner-Smith, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer Monday, April 14, 2008 At least one entrance to Aspen has been improved significantly. Aspen Valley Hospital is putting the finishing touches on a new maternity ward, which includes five new labor and delivery rooms for inbound Aspenites. "It's clean. It's bright. It's very patient-friendly and family-friendly," said Cheryl Heffernan, the obstetrics nurse manager at AVH, about the new "Aspen Birth Center," which expects to welcome between 300 and 340 babies a year. In addition to the new labor and delivery rooms, there are five post-partum, or post-delivery, rooms, a new nursery, as well as a new high-tech nursing station for monitoring labor in progress. "It's just great to have them all in one place," Heffernan said. The new birth center represents the first large expansion outside of the hospital footprint since it was constructed in 1977. About 5,000 square feet of new space has been added on to the west side of the hospital, and another 2,700 square feet inside the hospital will also be renovated in a second phase of the maternity ward. The first phase of the project cost $6.5 million to build. The new delivery rooms have 9-foot ceilings, large windows and what appear to be two-toned wood floors that are actually easy-to-clean vinyl floors. The rooms also have whirlpool bathtubs, a bed for mom that can easily be wheeled into the operating room if necessary, bright overhead lights that allow a doctor to see how things are coming along, and a specially designed armoire that includes a miniature Murphy bed where newly emerged infants can be weighed, kept warm and duly monitored. The post-partum rooms have a similar warm and cozy feel, and include a fold-out couch for dad, a queen-sized bed for mom and the baby, and a flat-screened television.
One of the rooms, called the "corner suite," has windows on two walls and expansive views of Aspen from Shadow Mountain all the way around to Buttermilk Mountain. "It really makes you feel like you are in Aspen," said Heffernan, who said she expects it to be a very popular location for the first couple of days of family bonding. Russel Sedmak, the architect, with Herry International Inc. of Denver, who designed the new birth center, said that while the new rooms and facilities look lush, they are not extravagant. "This is state of the art, but not above the level of other modern community hospitals," Sedmak said. Today at the hospital, there are two cramped delivery rooms that don't have windows, a nursery that doesn't have enough room for the rush of babies that occasionally overwhelm the hospital, and post-delivery rooms that are mixed among regular patient rooms at the hospital. The new post-delivery rooms are within the maternity ward, but are also set aside from the more hectic delivery zone. "It is very quiet and restful on this side and those were very deliberate decisions," said Heffernan. The new maternity ward will be open for business by mid-May, and hospital officials are eager to show off the new area and plan to hold a community open house. A master plan to add 144,000 square feet to the current 70,000 square feet has been submitted to the city of Aspen for review. The 5,000-square-foot expansion for the maternity ward was from a prior land-use approval, but represents the first step in what hospital officials say will ultimately be a transformation of the hospital into a modern facility and grow the hospital from today's 25 beds to 39 or 40 beds. Hospital staff members have been touring the new maternity ward and Heffernan said there has been a consistent reaction. "A frequent comment has been 'I can't believe it is the same hospital'," she said. Aspen hospital's new 'birth center' first phase of master plan John Colson The Aspen Times Aspen, CO Colorado April 13, 2008 ASPEN — Expecting mothers from Aspen to El Jebel now have a much more modern place to have their babies than in the past, thanks to the partial completion of a new maternity ward at Aspen Valley Hospital. The new "Aspen Birth Center" is roughly two and a half times as large as the old maternity ward, or it will be once renovation of the old maternity ward is finished. In the meantime, local moms-to-be can have their babies in a brand new, $6.5 facility that is to begin accepting patients some time in the next couple of weeks. Hospital officials conducted a media tour of the new wing last week, showing off the bigger labor and delivery rooms, nicer furnishings and new features — which include Jacuzzi bathtubs with colored lights to help mom chill out (or warm up) before the big event, and specially built armoire cabinets that contain a baby bunk with a warming lamp, a scale and infant monitoring equipment. Each delivery room also has a pair of high-intensity lamps built into the ceiling to shine directly onto the lower part of the bed, to help doctors and nurses see better during the delivery process. The new wing is done up in what CEO Dave Ressler called a "color palette" that reflects seasonal changes in the mountains surrounding the hospital, and is both durable enough and softly unobtrusive enough to last a long time, even if fashions among hospital color schemes change. "It's clean, it's bright, it's very patient friendly, very family friendly," declared an obviously proud Cheryl Heffernan, manager of the birthing department.
"Our goal is to be here ... versus going to the operating room" for deliveries, Heffernan explained, although Cesarean section births will still take place in the operating room. The layout boasts five labor/delivery/recovery rooms [known as LDR rooms in medical parlance] and four post-partum rooms located on the other side of a set of swinging doors to keep the noise levels down in the post-partum wing. There also is a post-partum room, said Heffernan, that will be convertible to an LDR when needed. A key part of the expansion is the new nurses station, perhaps twice as big as the old station and with a new fetal monitoring system that will allow the nurses to check on babies from the station. According to hospital spokeswoman Ginny Dyche, AVH handles between 300 and 340 births per year on the average — three times the number of babies born there in 1977. Over the past decade, Dyche said, the numbers have hit a plateau with only "a slight increase" in the annual birth rate. but they numbers, hospital officials have said, still outstripped the capacity of the old maternity ward. And, Ressler added, AVH is handling "a fair number of deliveries from the midvalley" every year, a number that the hospital expects to increase with the valley's expected overall population growth. The expanded birthing facilities are phase one of a larger expansion and renovation project, estimated to cost $100 million, that is to take place in the coming years. Phase two, according to officials, will be in the Patient Care Unit, the wing where the regular patient rooms are located. Officials clearly were proud of the Aspen Birth Center expansion, noting that in the old maternity ward, the nurses once had to take care of nine babies at once in a room designed for two. In the new wing, the nursery is equipped for "special care" babies, and designed for four beds at once. The new wing also is equipped to re-admit babies who experience medical problems after they leave, which Heffernan said is far better than putting them in with the general patient population in the Patient Care Unit. The old maternity ward, when it is finished, will contain a medicines room, a kitchen, an "anapartum room" for examining moms prior to the birth date, a waiting room, and an educational/lactation room for helping new moms learn some of the finer points of motherhood. The renovation of the old maternity ward should take about five months, according to John Scheid, AVH facilities manager, and Russell Sedmak, who is heading up the project for contractor Heery International, Inc. of Denver. Aspen hospital expansion plans move ahead City staff review under way, hearings likely next summer John Colson The Aspen Times Aspen, CO Colorado March 25, 2008 ASPEN — The plans to expand and renovate Aspen Valley Hospital — at an estimated cost of $100 million or more — are now in the hands of City Hall staff members. The hospital recently turned in its conceptual proposal as a Planned Unit Development document, which is intended to provide greater flexibility during the review process. David Ressler, the hospital's CEO, said the city has indicated that the staff review should be completed by June, after which the city's Planning and Zoning Commission is expected to schedule public hearings on the proposal. Ressler also said that, despite the financial storm clouds darkening the nation's skies these days, he is not worried about finding the money to pay for the hospital's expansion plans. The hospital district, which encompasses essentially the same area as Pitkin County with the exception of the Crystal and Fryingpan river valleys, announced plans late last year to triple the size of the hospital and add a three-level underground parking garage at the facility's campus on Castle Creek Road. The hospital is projected to grow from its current 71,000 square feet to about 214,000 square feet. The expansion will take place in four phases over several years, the first of which is nearing completion now. The hospital is almost finished with a $6 million expansion of the obstetrics and birthing wing, and soon will begin renovation of the former obstetrics ward. According to Ressler and hospital spokeswoman Ginny Dyche, the hospital has begun working on some of the details and the design of the second phase of the multiyear project. The second phase, Ressler explained, will focus on the patient care unit; on construction of the parking garage, which is to be located between the main hospital building and Castle Creek Road; and a portion of the planned medical office space for local doctors; among other additions. Phase three, he said, will bring expansion of the emergency room, radiology and surgery departments. Phase four, he said, calls for renovation of the existing hospital building. The existing hospital building will be updated last to allow normal operations to continue in the new sections (built in the earlier phases) while the existing facility is rebuilt. The first phase of the project, expansion and renovation of the obstetrics department, was paid for with money left over from an earlier bond issue approved by the district's voters, and some of the hospital's cash reserves. But for the coming phases, Ressler said, the hospital will turn to other financing options. Those likely will include some combination of using cash on hand; asking voters to approve increased debt; and seeking philanthropic assistance from wealthy supporters. Ressler said the hospital's finances continue to improve thanks largely to a revamped billing department. He said the hospital's reserve account now stands at around $30 million, or enough to continue operations for approximately 220 days without taking in any cash. National standards call for hospitals to have anywhere from 120 to 180 days of operating reserve on hand. In addition, Ressler said, the hospital's bond rating has improved to the point where it is now given a BAA3 rating by Moody's Investors Services, a nationally respected source of credit ratings and risk analysis. That rating, according to Moody's Investors Services, means that investments in AVH would be "subject to moderate credit risk. They are considered medium-grade and as such may possess certain speculative characteristics." It is the lowest-quality tier of the company's long-term risk assessments, but above the "speculative" or "junk" rating levels. Ressler said he is not worried that the current turmoil in the national financial markets, triggered by the collapse of the subprime mortgage industry, might pose a problem for the sale of bonds to finance the hospital's project. "Certainly, it's something we need to be thinking about," he said. But he said he's had no indication from Terry Collins, the hospital's chief financial officer, that trouble might be brewing. Given the hospital's improving financial reports, its growing cash reserves and its record of paying its bonded indebtedness obligations, he hopes that "Moody's will continue to look at Aspen Valley Hospital favorably." Although the exact mix of financing tools for the project won't be known for some time, Ressler said, "It's some sort of public-backed financing." And, he said, "It's probably a couple of years before we begin construction" on the remaining phases. |
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