A new facility to house additional office space and a planned medical simulation lab at Hilo Medical Center took a step forward Monday, but is still years away from reality.
Following the demolition of HMC’s 70-year-old “West Wing” administrative building last November, HMC began preparing for a modern administrative services building on the same site, located immediately north of the hospital parking lot and directly adjacent to the helipad. A draft environmental assessment for that project was published Monday through the state Office on Planning and Sustainable Development.
The project, while still unfunded and with only a tentative construction schedule, will both replace the administrative offices of the former building while adding new spaces that could provide a new pipeline for residents to pursue medical education, said Assistant Hospital Administrator Kris Wilson.
“We were sad to see (the West Wing) go, but it will be very nice to be able to use that space for a new building,” Wilson said.
According to the draft assessment, the new facility will be roughly 15,000 square feet and two stories high, and will support between 120 and 150 staff. While the new building “will not lead to any measurable increase in staff,” the assessment states that it will provide learning space for about 35 physician residents.
Wilson said the building will ideally include lab space for a workforce development program that allows those physician residents to train using medical mannequins, which she said will allow for more options for physicians to get hands-on training without leaving the Big Island.
The draft assessment anticipated no significant impacts from construction, largely because it will be built entirely on the site of an only recently demolished building.
However, Wilson emphasized that the project is still a long way away.
“Assuming the stars align, at the very earliest, I think we’re looking at starting construction at the beginning of 2026,” Wilson said, adding that the project’s design phase is still incomplete and that a final price tag for the project, let alone a funding source, has still not been determined.
That said, the draft assessment estimates the building will cost roughly $10.5 million.
The project, Wilson said, is also wholly unrelated to a much larger HMC construction project that will begin later this week. The $80 million Hilo Medical Center Expansion Project — which will add, among other things, a 19-bed intensive care unit, a 36-bed medical surgical unit, and more across two buildings — will have its official groundbreaking on Wednesday.
Wilson said that the Expansion Project is expected to be completed in 2026, and added that work on the new administrative services building will ideally begin shortly thereafter.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.