By James S. Tyree
The Oklahoman
 
Construction on the Norman Regional Hospital Healthplex is progressing well enough hospital officials hope to have it open in the spring of 2009. 

Greg Terrell, Norman Regional Hospital senior vice president and chief operating officer, said that wasn't always the case. Earlier this year, the only activity to be seen at Tecumseh Road off Interstate 35 often was raindrops splashing on the site's tower-mounted cameras.

"The weather has been perfect over the last few months," Terrell said. "They've been pouring 15,000 feet of concrete every week."

A $129 million, 400,000-square-foot hospital will be the centerpiece of the 95-acre Healthplex campus. The hospital will have eight operating rooms and 151 beds within its five-story orthopedics/cardiology tower and three-story women's and children's unit.

The facility will supplement the 337 beds at Norman Regional Hospital and the 45 at Moore Medical Center.

Terrell said an 80,000-square-foot physician's office building will be constructed just west of the hospital. It is scheduled to open with the hospital in spring 2009.

The campus will have aesthetic amenities, including a lake with a large fountain, and a walking trail.

Page Southerland Page of Dallas is the lead architectural firm and Flintco of Oklahoma City is the contractor. Terrell said many people within the hospital also gave their opinions on what the hospital should have and look like. "It's gone very smooth from a design and construction standpoint, but it's something that had taken a tremendous amount of planning," Terrell said. "We spent six months just on the architectural part, asking for input from a lot of people."

While the tallest portion will be five stories, Terrell said an eight-story elevator tower is being built to accommodate future expansion.

The Healthplex campus eventually could have up to 400 hospital beds once additional phases are completed. It's part of a long-range master plan adopted in 2004. Meanwhile, having the Healthplex hospital will allow the one on Porter Avenue to undergo renovations. The original hospital is 60 years old. The growing campus will become an economic engine for the area, Terrell said, because ultimately it will have about 500 employees — and thousands of friends and relatives of patients — who will need services and places to eat. The location along I-35 is important, Terrell said, because about half of Norman Regional Hospital's patients come from outside Norman.

"We're kind of repeating history because this hospital was built on Highway 77, which was the major highway into Norman," he said.

Copyright 2007, The Oklahoma Publishing Company