Community leaders and members of the SRHS Board of Trustees turn dirt as Board president Mike Heidelberg, left, and Chris Anderson, SRHS CEO, release the track hoe buckets during the dirt dumping ceremony for Singing River Medical Park.
Singing River Health System held a ceremonial dirt dumping Nov. 5 to celebrate the beginning of construction of a 70,000 square foot Singing River Medical Park.
Following remarks by Chris Anderson, SRHS Chief Executive Officer; Mike Heidelberg, SRHS Board of Trustees president; Kay Kell, Pascagoula City Manager; George Freeland, Jackson County Economic Development Executive Director; and Manly Barton, Jackson County Board of Supervisors president; attendees counted down to release of soil from the track hoe buckets.
Elected officials, SRHS Board of Trustees members and other representatives of the community and Health System contributed to the pile with shovelfuls of dirt.
“Today we celebrate an opportunity to further improve the quality of life in our community, we celebrate a major economic development project in our community, and most importantly, we celebrate a commitment to being part of a very special place,” Anderson said.
The state-of-the-art facility in Pascagoula will house The Neuroscience Center, a medical laboratory, outpatient imaging services, cardiac rehabilitation, physical therapy and the Healthplex medical wellness center. The project is expected to be completed in early 2011 and cost approximately $20 million.
Singing River Medical Park was designed specifically to meet the needs of outpatients, and to provide a space where treatment, preventive and lifestyle improvement services are located together. This will allow patients to access multiple services in a convenient and coordinated manner.
“This project, when completed, is going to take a significant amount of stress off of the hospital,” Anderson said. “It’s going to improve access, parking and service for all of the patients that use both hospital services and the services in this medical office park.”
With 150,000 to 200,000 annual visits to the facility predicted, the Medical Park may also improve the community’s health. According to a recent Community Health Needs Assessment survey conducted by Singing River Health System, three-quarters of the area is overweight, and only a small percentage of respondents reported taking steps to alter their state. The survey showed that 38 percent of respondents are obese; the state obesity rate is 33 percent. The Healthplex medical wellness center will aid in the fight against this staggering statistic.
In addition to helping Singing River Health System pursue its mission of improving the quality of life in the community by delivering world-class health care and wellness services, Singing River Medical Park will have a significant economic impact on the community.
Anderson said SRHS is the second largest employer in the area, treats more than 100,000 patients in the two hospital emergency departments annually, cares for more than 18,000 inpatients each year and will about 2,000 babies in 2009.
“Our impact in the community just in the last years is in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said.
Freeland said his role in economic development gives his a firm understanding and appreciation of Singing River Health System’s economic impact on the community.
“This facility we’re here to dedicate in and of itself represents a $20 million capital investment,” he said. “It will create 30 new jobs and will inevitable improve the livability of our community, and will further the revitalization of Jackson County.”
Local contractor Fletcher Construction has been awarded the job, which will require an estimated 150 construction workers during the project.
Once open, an anticipated 25 to 30 new jobs may be created within the facility. This premier medical wellness facility may improve efforts to recruit physicians, executives, and even businesses, to the ar ea, and it is anticipated that the investment will contribute to the City of Pascagoula’s revitalization efforts and long-term growth plans.
“As we in the Health System have watched our community’s renewed commitment over the past four years to be something better than it was before, and really to be something very, very special, we’ve made a renewed commitment, not just to be a part of that, but to be a part of leading it.”
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