Wednesday, April 11, 2007

A Caldwell County Hospital Board meeting begun with the purpose of reclarifying the role of a project manager in the plan to build a new hospital ended with the board hiring a firm to fill that role.

In a noon meeting Monday, the hospital board voted to hire American Health Facilities Development (AHFD) as project manager for the new hospital project.

AHFD President Exley Hill and Steve Rutland, vice president of project management, were on hand Monday to explain to the board the role of a project manager.

AHFD, though, was at the same time vying for the project manager’s role itself, as one of two firms the board was considering for the job.

Four firms interested in being project manager were invited to make presentations to the board in November, and AHFD and another firm were chosen for further consideration after those presentations.

After the AHFD presentation Monday, the hospital board went into closed session discussion and came out with a decision to hire the firm, based in Brentwood, Tenn.

“They were ready to hire somebody and get started,” hospital CEO Charles Lovell Jr. said.

Some concerns were raised about whether the Kentucky Association of Counties’ $25 million loan funding the new hospital would be awarded to the hospital as a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization or as a public entity.

The hospital has not yet received the loan documents identifying the arrangement, he said.

The designation would affect the way in which the construction planning process could proceed, but Lovell said the board decided the hospital plan would move forward regardless of how the loan was awarded.

Lovell said a proposed contract would be reviewed by hospital administrators and board attorney Todd Wetzel and should be signed and returned within two weeks, in time for the board’s regular meeting on April 30.

As project manager, AHFD will receive a fee based as a percentage of the total project cost, Lovell said.

Their role will be to handle the logistics of the construction planning process for the board, freeing hospital administrators from that responsibility.

One of the AHFD’s first tasks as project manager will apparently be to assist the board and administrators in acquiring property for the new hospital.

Lovell said he showed Hill and Rutland the county industrial park land the hospital was considering before the meeting, as well as the acreage proposed for a Wal-Mart Supercenter and other land along U.S. 62, to give them a “perspective on what was out there.”

Hill told board members the firm could assist in obtaining geotechnical work, core drilling and environmental studies on land considered.

He recommended that the board, when it identifies a property, option that property for 90 days so the work could be completed.

As that process is completed, the firm can also begin issuing requests for proposals to architects.

He also suggested the board hire a contracting firm early on to serve as the project’s construction manager.

Having all the principals in the project working together from the outset should serve to make the process more efficient and prove more satisfactory to the board, which has the final say as the new hospital plan unfolds.

“There only can be one agenda,” he said. “That’s the client’s agenda.”