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New hospital takes shape Photo by Jim Craven Construction worker Dave Kerr helps guide a girder into place as the new Three Rivers Hospital and Health Center takes shape in Grants Pass. The Three Rivers Community Hospital could open April 2001 By DAVID PRESZLER GRANTS PASS -- Girders form the skeleton of the new centerpiece of Josephine County health care. Earlier this week, workers began assembling the steel framework that will become the new Three Rivers Community Hospital and Health Center. "When you start seeing the cranes and things going up in the sky, then you really know it's happening," says Roy Vinyard, Asante Health System's chief executive. Asante is building the $52 million hospital on 12 acres across the Redwood Highway from the Josephine County Fairgrounds. Construction started last summer and the hospital is projected to open in April 2001. The three-story hospital will have 200,000 square feet of floor space and combine the operations of Three Rivers' two current locations, the Washington and Dimmick campuses. It will include a separate $2.8 million cancer center that will eliminate the need for many patients to travel to Medford for treatment. While some medical gear will be brought in from the old campuses, the project includes roughly $8 million in new equipment, according to Paul Janke, the Asante senior vice president who oversees Three Rivers. "We really needed a new facility," says Janke, noting that both current campuses were built in the early 1960s and have become difficult to maintain. Bringing the two campuses under one roof will make Asante's operations in Grants Pass more efficient, though it may mean slightly fewer jobs as redundant positions are eliminated. Three Rivers employs 755 people in the equivalent of 650 full-time jobs. Though the new cancer center will bring some new jobs, Janke says the number of employees won't change much. "I would guess that it would stay the same or shrink," he says. There's little question that the hospital is a driving force in the city's and county's economies. Three Rivers' annual payroll in salaries and benefits for the most recent fiscal year, which ended in September, was $32.5 million. Its annual revenues were $57 million. That figure includes only reimbursement money it expects to receive; billing for services actually provided is significantly higher. Asante also owns Medford's Rogue Valley Medical Center and numerous other health-care businesses in Southern Oregon. The non-profit organization has about 2,800 employees, not counting approximately 200 doctors in the recently spun-off Southern Oregon Health Trust. Asante's payroll in salary and benefits for the 1999 fiscal year was $143 million. Its annual revenues -- again based on expected reimbursements -- was $230 million. Most of the funding -- $48 million worth -- for the new hospital is coming from tax-free bonds that Asante is selling and from operating income. It also hopes to raise $4 million from the community. When Asante's board voted in 1998 to build the new hospital and picked the site, the move was greeted with some opposition by city officials and others in the community. There were concerns about the future of the two current campuses and traffic around the new site, says Grants Pass City Manager Bill Petersen. The new site is on the south side of the Rogue River, across town from both the existing campuses and the downtown core. The concern, Petersen says, was that moving it would dramatically shift the city's economic power, possibly undermining the health of its downtown. The areas around the existing campuses have flourished, with medical offices and other services that rely on the hospitals. Those concerns have eased some because of plans for the existing campuses, Petersen says. Asante owns the Washington campus. Janke says the site likely will house some Asante services, such as occupational medicine and home health. The Dimmick campus is owned by Josephine County. Asante has a lease on it that ends in December 2001. Petersen and Asante officials say the county plans to move some health department operations into the buildings, though officials were unable to confirm that Thursday. With those buildings remaining in use, Petersen says, the economic health of the north end of town will remain strong, while the south end will be enhanced. "The hospital location is a giant economic engine that will change the south side of the river," he says. The other concern, traffic, has been addressed by plans to make the main entrance to the hospital farther west on Redwood Highway and upgrade the surrounding streets, Petersen says. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA