CMH to open new hospital tower in April

Officials at Citizens Memorial Hospital feel confident its multimillion-dollar expansion project will be ready for patients by April and have announced a public unveiling for its new tower later this month.

The $100 million expansion and renovation project began with a groundbreaking ceremony in September 2023, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting. The three-story, roughly 117,000-square-foot addition on the south side of the hospital doubles the size of the facility, which opened in 1982.

Michael Calhoun, CEO and executive director of the health care system and the Citizens Memorial Health Care Foundation, said he feels elated about the oncoming launch of the new tower, for which construction is expected to be substantially complete by Feb. 25.

“When we show it, it’s going to be show-ready. It’s going to be available to see what the finished product looks like, but we still have some time before we move in,” Calhoun said, noting the move into the tower will be a staged approach through March and much of April. “We have to take it slow. We’ve got patients being cared for, so we have to transition and then support.

“By the end of April, we’re going to be operational in it,” he added.

Patient care areas moving to the new tower include an expanded emergency department along with medical/surgical, intensive care and birthing units with private rooms for patients. Additional features include a new hospital main entrance, kitchen, cafeteria and dining area, coffee shop and expanded gift shop, according to officials. An additional 17,000 square feet on the third floor will remain a shell for future expansion needs.

“It’s not very often that a community gets a new hospital in their town,” Calhoun said. “In fact, it’s somewhat rare now, especially in rural areas. I think the community can celebrate that we’re opening what is essentially a new hospital here.”

Calhoun said the emergency room expansion will be the largest of any department in the hospital. With the new tower, the hospital will now have 29 patient rooms.

“We see about 21,000 ER visits a year, and right now we only have 12 rooms that we can see them in, so it’s going to be a welcome expansion,” he said.

Renovations in 25,000 square feet of the existing hospital are considered the second and final phase of the project. Work is expected to wrap up by the end of this year and will include a surgical department expansion and two new cardiac catheterization laboratory procedure rooms. 

Construction costs are expected to comprise around $84 million of the $100 million project, officials say. CMH was approved for $63.5 million through the U.S. Department of Agriculture Community Facilities Direct Loan Program, according to CMH officials. Additionally, officials say the remainder of the project is being funded by revenue bonds with several local banks and undisclosed investors.

“The USDA, we couldn’t really do this without their partnership. It’s a 30-year loan for 2.5% interest,” Calhoun said.

Sarah Hanak, CMH’s system director of nursing, said the expansion will “transform the way we deliver care.”

“That is a game-changer for our care delivery model, to be able to have all private rooms,” she said, noting its hospital rooms previously have been semiprivate. “It really will enable us to be able to take the healing portion of care, take the compassion, take the privacy portion of care, and really make it centric to the individual patient.”

Accommodating workforce
The project’s expected completion this year comes as the health system reached a new milestone in 2025, surpassing 2,500 employees for the first time. It now employs 2,565 systemwide, according to officials. Of that total, over 1,200 employees work in the hospital and more than 400 are expected to soon be working in the new hospital tower – a number officials expect will grow as needs demand. 

“As we recruit additional physicians and as we add new services, we continue to recruit for new support staff,” Calhoun said, noting its employee count continues to grow annually. “I think our forecast said that just this building will probably end up being about 100 net new jobs. But that really is hard to gauge because if our patient volume grows by more than we projected, there’ll be more jobs available than what we’ve even said.”

Hanak said CMH began adding positions a couple months ago in preparation for the expansion.

“One thing we hadn’t considered in our current state was that we are all on one level. This new hospital is on multiple levels, and there’s little things like patient transport, for one,” she said, noting the hospital is adding patient transporters to its staff. “We’re working to get those added and hired as we prep for the new space.”

Of the nearly 1,800 people employed by CMH’s hospital and clinic business units, officials say 83% of them live in CMH’s service area: Polk, Benson, Cedar, Dade, Dallas, Hickory, St. Clair and northern Greene counties. Of that total, around 1,032 employees, or 58%, live in Polk County.

Brad Testerman, president and CEO of Economic Development Partnership of Bolivar & Polk County, said the CMH project is not only a big deal for Polk County but the many rural areas it also serves.

“The main significance of it is they’re going to be able to treat more patients,” he said, adding fewer will have to travel as far for health care needs.

He said that includes dialysis treatments, as CMH in early January opened its $7.3 million, 9,373-square-foot dialysis and nephrology center. The new facility is less than a half-mile from the hospital.

As for housing to serve current and future CMH employees, Testerman said the community needs more. Residential construxaction is ongoing, he said, as around 15 houses are currently being built in Bolivar, most of which are in the $235,000-$250,000 range. Additionally, roughly 22 units for condominiums or duplexes are under construction.

“That will help,” he said. “It’s not enough, but I think as the area grows, we tend to be able to grow with it.”

Moving ahead
As construction wraps up on the expansion, a lot of moving activity is on the horizon over the coming weeks. But Calhoun said there are a lot of meetings taking place to sufficiently prepare staff.

“Something also that people maybe don’t realize is how much training it takes so that the people that are caring for patients know where to find things, and they know how to operate in their new space,” Calhoun said. “So, we’re doing all that work in the background and preparing for the moves right now.”

Calhoun said the main CMH building, which was constructed in Bolivar in the 1980s and expanded in the 1990s and early 2000s, has served the community well for over 40 years. He expects even better service upon completion of the project this year.

“I’m just overjoyed that we’ve gotten to this point, and I can see the end in sight,” he said. “It’s really a beginning, right? Because we’re going to begin to care for people here in a way with resources that we’ve not had before.”

CMH was determined to show off the expanded facility to the public, but Calhoun said it obviously needed to happen before April.

“Once we move patients in, you can’t do that,” he said. “We’re a 24/7 service.”

A come-and-go grand opening event at 1500 N. Oakland Ave. in Bolivar is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Feb. 28 and will include an open house, refreshments and guided tours.

J.E. Dunn Construction Co. is general contractor for the project, while Overland Park, Kansas-based HMN Architects Inc. is architect and landscape architect is frankZdesign LLC, according to past SBJ reporting.