EMH plans facility to house doctors Building near EMMC called good business

Eastern Maine Healthcare plans to build an $11.5 million building for physicians this year in a parking lot next to Eastern Maine Medical Center,.

The five-story building would contain more than 90,000 square feet, according to Jill McDonald, a hospital spokeswoman. It would house forty-four physicians from seven groups and several solo practices in a building adjacent to the Webber building complex. McDonald said Dahl Chase Pathology would be one of the groups in the new building.

EMH announced the plan in a press release late Thursday afternoon.

Although EMH will take out a short-term loan to finance the project, the doctors ultimately will own and pay for the building, McDonald said. The corporation has contracted with H. E. Sargent Inc. and WBRC Architects/Engineers to do the work.

The project will require city and state review, she said. But since the space will be occupied by doctors’ practices, the hospital does not anticipate having to go before the Department of Human Services Certificate of Need unit for approval, she said. The DHS process is intended to ensure medical costs aren’t inflated by unnecessary services or construction.

The EMH release said the building will be good for business.

“At a time when health care leaders are so closely monitoring the rising costs of health care, it may seem contradictory for EMH to be constructing a new building on EMMC’s campus,” it said. “But [the new building] is one solution to the economic stresses facing EMMC. New physicians means new surgeries, new procedures and new diagnostic tests. Accommodating new physicians and earning more business from existing doctors means increased revenue for EMMC.”

The addition would also add property tax revenues to the city of Bangor, the release states.

CEO Norman Ledwin is quoted in the release saying that EMH’s $200,000 study of regional health needs last year “documented the advanced levels of chronic disease we deal with in our region.” The new building will help maintain EMMC’s critical role in meeting those needs, given its role in the regional health care system.

As the new building is announced, EMH is moving ahead with expansion plans in Brewer, McDonald said. EMH announced in late 2000 that it would move administrative and some diagnostic and outpatient services employing more than 200 people to the Brewer site off I-395. The multimillion dollar project hasn’t moved ahead as quickly as originally anticipated and EMH is working to secure funding, McDonald said.