Concrete next phase of QVMC construction

QUINCY — Construction crews will start pouring the concrete slab at the site of the new Quincy Valley Medical Center sometime next week. 

The steel supports for the first and second floors are going up, a process that requires a crane and one that project manager Joe Kunkel said is nearing completion.

“The next thing coming up will be when the crane leaves, you’ll see the concrete trucks coming in,” Kunkel said.

The concrete slab will be poured in sections, and should be completed by the end of March, Kunkel said. Abram Jenks of the Klosh Group, consultants on the project, said framing will begin once that’s done.

The work will continue despite some risk, which Kunkel said he thought was a slight risk but still a risk, posed by unfinished reviews by the Washington Department of Health. 

Typically DOH staffers review the design multiple times during construction, he said, but make one complete review and ask questions they have before construction begins. The QVMC project didn’t get that initial review due to DOH staffing shortages. 

“Normally, you get an authorization at the beginning of construction, after they’ve done their first set of reviews — which they gave us, but it was a limited one. They said, ‘Well, you can do site work and steel,’” Kunkel said.

That part of the project is nearing completion, he said. 

The DOH reviews multiple components of the project, from fire safety to mechanical and electrical systems. Department of Health officials then ask questions about the design, which are answered by the applicant, in this case, QVMC. 

“So then you resubmit (the plans) based on those comments. And then they go back through it again,” Kunkel said. 

That process usually takes multiple rounds of questions and answers, he said. In the case of QVMC, the process has stalled. Hospital officials held a meeting with DOH staffers Tuesday to answer the most significant questions from DOH. Kunkel said the contractors and architects believe they have satisfactory answers, and by Friday will have answers to all the questions they’ve been given so far.

“We think that the level of risk is minor and manageable,” Kunkel said.

The DOH can’t stop construction if they’re not done with the reviews, Kunkel said, and project managers don’t want to stop construction now that it’s started.

“You can (continue) at risk, or you can not (continue).” he said. “They can’t tell you to stop. They will tell you you’re responsible for things they haven’t reviewed.” 

The project is on schedule, said Jessie Steiger of the Klosh Group, although construction was delayed for a few days by bad weather in January. Hospital officials have received the building permit from the city. 

“That was a huge milestone,” she said.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.