City council OKs SoutheastHEALTH, airport projects

SoutheastHEALTH is planning two expansion and two remodeling projects for its main Cape Girardeau campus, a hospital official said Monday.

Chief financial officer and hospital vice president Hugh King said the addition of a 26-bed outpatient observation unit and an inpatient pediatric emergency room and observation unit is expected to be completed during the next year with a remodel of the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit and ambulatory surgery area also planned to be finished in the fall of 2014.

The hospital is working with the Industrial Development Authority of Cape Girardeau County in an effort to secure $40 million in bonds that will pay for the projects, equipment and refinancing of bonds issued to the hospital in 2002 for other construction.

Cape Girardeau's city council on Monday passed a resolution in support of the project. Next, the hospital and IDA must hold a public hearing, which is set for Sept. 20 at the Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce, and obtain the support of the Cape Girardeau County commission.

King said the new pediatric emergency center will be built next to the current emergency room on the hospital's west end. The observation unit will be built on top of the emergency room addition.

"About 20 percent of the patients who come to the emergency department are pediatric patients, and we're very proud of the physicians we have in our emergency department, but the new service will have pediatric hospitalists."

Pediatric hospitalists are pediatricians who focus their work in hospitals. The new construction is also expected to create more available private rooms inside the hospital, King said, and the hospital also as a result may add about 30 jobs.

The council on Monday also gave first-round approval for spending on several projects, including 10 new hangars and associated taxi lanes at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, a stormwater and sewer improvement project for downtown and projects being funded by a casino-revenue capital improvements fund.

The hangars and taxi lanes at the airport will be funded primarily by a grant from the Missouri Department of Transportation. The city is expected to contribute about $35,000 toward the $500,000 cost of the project. The new hangars, according to the city's estimates, will generate about $22,000 per year in revenue for the airport if all the hangars are leased.

First readings of ordinances were also approved that will appropriate $797,858 in casino capital improvements money toward a round of improvement projects and an additional $475,856 from the city's separate stormwater and sewer fund for a $2.2 million project. The stormwater and sewer project is expected to relieve flooding during major rain events and help with business, residential and street flooding issues along Broadway.

Initial approval also was given to a plan to allocate 3 percent of annual casino revenue into an adjacent community fund. Cape Girardeau County and the cities of Jackson and Scott City are expected to be able to add storm warning sirens with the $77,000 planned to be sent into the fund.

eragan@semissourian.com

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1701 Lacey St., Cape Girardeau, MO

401 Independence St., Cape Girardeau, MO