Hospital expansion to begin

Boone Hospital Center’s plans to expand its campus could begin as early as this week with the construction of a medical plaza and a 528-space parking garage on Broadway.

The Boone Hospital Center Board of Trustees voted to approve site plans and selected a contractor to build the new medical office building, Broadway Medical Plaza 4, at a special meeting on Nov. 14.

The contract for the $10 million project was awarded to River City Construction, the same Illinois-based construction company that expanded and renovated MU’s Brewer Fieldhouse and built the university’s Life Sciences Center.

Myrl Frevert, director of support services at the hospital, said the project would require 32,000 cubic yards — 3,000 truckloads — of dirt to be hauled to the site. “The dirt will be coming down Broadway from behind the new Applebee’s,” he said.

Most of the construction is expected to be completed by February 2007, with work expected to finish six months later.

The Graham Group, an Iowa-based medical building management firm that will own the building, will fund the entire cost of constructing Broadway Medical Plaza 4. The Graham Group also plans to pay the hospital board of trustees a yearly ground lease of about $108,000 for a term of 75 years.