LINCOLN – The boxes had still to be unpacked, the equipment set up and patients wheeled in, but after at least 15 years of waiting, Brenda Sutherland’s special day arrived Monday.

“To have it come and actually be real has been a dream,” said Sutherland, surgical services nursing manager at Penobscot Valley Hospital.

She was describing the hospital’s new $4.2 million surgical suite. Construction of the center finished Friday about 7 percent under budget after almost a year of labor.

“It has really increased everybody’s morale and made such a big difference in our appearance,” Sutherland said.

The surgical suite is an 8,600-square-foot addition to the hospital’s 55,000-square-foot floor plan. Federal grants and KeyBank loans paid for it.

It should be ready for emergency surgeries on Wednesday, with routine operations scheduled for next week, Sutherland said.

The new center, hospital officials said, adds a second surgical suite to the hospital and could double or triple PVH’s surgical workload. It is designed to improve hospital efficiency, attract new doctors to the area and increase Lincoln’s capacity as a regional service hub – though PVH will not likely supplant Eastern Maine Medical Center or St. Joseph Hospital, both in Bangor.

“For certain specialty procedures, such as heart catheterization or cardiac bypass surgeries, things like that, people will probably still have to go to Bangor,” said Paul Smith, PVH’s executive director of support services. “With many specialty cases, it’s just not economically feasible for a small hospital such as this to offer those services.”

But hospital traffic for more common procedures, such as joint replacements or colonoscopy, could vastly increase. Doctors who have to wait one to three months to book elective surgery at other facilities might be lured to PVH, which promises a quicker turnaround time, Smith said.

In 2005, there were 845 surgical procedures performed in the hospital’s single operating room, said Jessica Fogg, PVH’s assistant director of marketing and development. PVH recently hired two surgical nurses and will likely expand its payroll further if the suite traffic expands significantly, Sutherland said.

Hospital officials are trying to recruit an orthopedic surgeon to the area to complement the new suite, and they are exploring further construction projects, including renovating the hospital’s emergency room, Smith said.

PVH is not the area’s only hospital undergoing renovations.

Millinocket Regional Hospital is being partially renovated for about $1.15 million to produce a new wellness and physical therapy center. That work is due to finish by mid-March, said David Nelson, director of MRH’s community relations.

“It will give us more space, and consolidate space, and put our rehabilitation and wellness team at one location instead of scattered across our campus,” Nelson said Monday.

A new family practice office and an internal medicine suite also have been created, he said.