St. Mary's breaks ground for hospital expansion

RENO -- Officials at St. Mary's Hospital will break ground on their $160 million expansion today, the hospital's first major development since 1981.

The ceremony comes less than two weeks after Carson-Tahoe Hospital began work on its 337,000-square-foot regional medical center.

The St. Mary's addition will add almost 450,000 square feet, doubling the size of the hospital campus.

A new 40,000 square-foot emergency room department, expanded west tower, six-story parking structure, medical office buildings and a park-like plaza are just a few of the amenities to be added, just west of and around the existing campus.

"The area is growing, and we've experienced a dramatic increase in demand," said Becky Swanson, director of community relations at St. Mary's. "With this addition, we'll have the ability to add new technology, more people and more staff-friendly spaces. We can't retrofit the old building enough, to create the room we need."

Expanding a hospital campus in an urban setting can be challenging, but hospital officials have been buying up the property surrounding the existing campus for years, Swanson said.

"We looked at relocation studies years ago," she said. "But we decided we were in a very good spot."

The project should be completed in 2007, just one year before the hospital's 100th anniversary, Swanson said.

The groundbreaking is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. today, at the corner of Elm and Arlington Streets in Reno.