Dozens turned out Thursday morning to help RiverView Health celebrate the groundbreaking of their $51 million expansion project. RiverView President and CEO Carrie Michalski said she was grateful that so many members of the community and those involved in the project were in attendance. “We just had a beautiful day,” said Michalski. “Just so grateful that so many of our community members, foundation donors and folks that worked on design this project that we’re going to embark on were able to join us today.”
Also speaking during the ceremony were Andy Oman, RiverView Board Chair; Paul Widlarz, Principal Architect for HGA; Jason Toso, Mortenson Construction; Marcia Schoenborn, RiverView Foundation Board Chair; Dale Stainbrook, Vice-Mayor of Crookston; and Pastor Gregory Isaacson, Trinity Lutheran Church.
Widlarz said he couldn’t say enough about the engagement of RiverView staff and leadership during the design phase of the project. “We were brought on a designer primarily because a big part of our practice is operational process improvement,” said Widlarz. “One of the things that hospital was very interested in was how do you lean out the operations of the building so caregivers can spend more time at the bedside with the patients. They went through an exhaustive process of reimagining how healthcare would be provided so we weren’t designing the last of the old but the first of the new. I can’t say enough about the engagement we got from front line staff, physicians and leadership in that process. They were at every single meeting, building full-scale mockups and working through the processes. A pretty awesome opportunity and responsibility to design the next 40 to 50 years of healthcare for RiverView.”
Mortenson Construction will begin construction on the state-of-the-art facility on Monday, April 29 with the new hospital to open in the Fall of 2020. Michalski said Mortenson has a great track record and she is confident the project will be accomplished on time and on budget. “Now the goals become really focused on staying on time with the project so we can occupy this building in the fall of 2020 and stay on budget,” said Michalski. “It’s a community resource and we have a finite amount of money and we’re really focused on staying on the budget that we have. That’s part of why we invested in Mortenson Construction and our partners to help us do that. They have a great track record and I’m really confident that we can do that.”
