MISHAWAKA — The sixth floor of the new Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center looks ready to go, with carpeting, painted walls and eco-friendly doors. All that seems missing is the patients, staff and equipment to treat them.

On the first floor, there's a lot more missing, with the floors still concrete and wires hanging out of the walls.

Members of the local media toured the site Thursday, and construction on the $355 million facility in Mishawaka will be officially completed on Oct. 27. All patients will be transferred from the South Bend location on Dec. 14.

Andrew Snyder, vice president of community development and marketing for the medical center, said the new facility will slowly open its services on the move-in date, starting with the emergency room. He said he expects the move of about 150 patients will take four to five hours and will enlist the help of ambulances from around the state.

"As you can imagine, moving from our current location to this location is very exciting but also very daunting," Snyder said.

Half of the building will be turned over early to the medical center on Aug. 15 from contractor M.A. Mortenson Construction, according to Lori Skora, vice president of facility planning and development for the hospital.

"It's really just to get staff and our process flows all in place so we know how the new activities will be done in that building," Skora said.

The fifth and sixth floors of the building are essentially finished, and are "ready for us to start moving furniture and medical equipment in," Skora said.

The first and second floors are "the big things left to do" and are "the most complex parts of the hospital," she said. The first two floors will house the emergency department, surgical suites and outpatient services.

Planning for the hospital began 10 years ago as part of a master facility plan. The decision to build a new hospital was made in lieu of renovations to the hospital in South Bend.

"When we looked at the cost to renovate this (the South Bend) hospital it was almost equivalent to building a new hospital." Skora said. "The real caveat was that it was going to take about 10 years to fully renovate this campus versus building a new hospital in three years. If we're going to spend this kind of money to renovate the South Bend hospital, why wouldn't we build a new hospital?"

The project was delayed due to leadership changes, including a shift to current CEO Nancy R. Hellyer in October 2003. Also, the hospital's former parent company, Holy Cross Health System, merged with Mercy Health Services to create its current parent company, Trinity Health. Snyder said Trinity is the fourth largest Catholic hospital system in the country.

A formal announcement about the new site was made in 2005, and construction began in October 2006. Snyder said the project has for the most part stayed on budget and on schedule.

"We have worked so hard ahead of schedule to get all of our ducks in a row and get everything on paper so we didn't have to take the time and spend the money to make revisions once the building was under construction," Snyder said. "We have one opportunity to get this right."

The South Bend hospital will be demolished, though plans for the land are currently unknown, said Mike Stack, public relations coordinator for the hospital. He said they offered the land to the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend for a new Saint Joseph's High School, but that offer "is still out there."

Stack estimated the demolition on the old hospital would begin next spring or summer.

Skora said the new hospital will provide "a healing environment that is second-to-none in this country."

"It's a hospital that was built by our staff, our community, our physicians," Skora said. "For many it's been an opportunity of a lifetime."

Staff writer Andrew Scoggin:
ascoggin@sbtinfo.com