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AURORA — Officials at Aurora's Memorial Hospital plan to break ground on a $7.8 million expansion and renovation project within the next several months.
The hospital's board voted Tuesday night to hire JE Dunn Construction of Omaha for the project, Chief Executive Officer Diane Keller said Wednesday.
An emergency room, a wing of private long-term care rooms and a new dietary department will be added. Several other parts of the hospital will be expanded, including the pharmacy, kitchen and specialty clinic.
The project is the second phase of the hospital's long-term expansion plan, which started with construction of the $4.3 million Ken Wortman Surgery Center from 2006 to 2008.
The privately owned hospital plans to pay for the project through loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and local banks, Keller said. It plans to pay back the loans through increased revenue, part of which will come from the expansion.
The hospital will not do any significant fundraising, as it did with the surgery center.
“We just don't think that the time is right to go back to the community and ask for more money,” Keller said, “so we decided to look at our internal options, and we think we have a solid business plan.”
— World-Herald News Service
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