Tom Sommers still remembers the first time he came to Beatrice for a job interview. At the time, November of 2004, Sommers was interviewing to become CEO of Beatrice Community Hospital and Health Center.

He knew one goal for a new CEO might someday be construction of a new hospital.

Driving south on U.S. Highway 77, nearing Hickory Road, Sommers recalls turning to his wife and telling her “that’s where a new hospital

ought to go.”

Five years later, it’s happening.

On Monday, at 2 p.m., Beatrice Community Hospital and Health Center will hold a groundbreaking ceremony at the Holiday Inn Express to celebrate the upcoming construction of a new hospital. Work on the site will likely begin in November if weather permits.

“It’s exciting,” Sommers said on Friday. “We need to build a hospital to meet the needs of the community. The goal is to provide a better patient experience with ease of navigation, more family space in rooms and the ability to add technology and grow to meet future needs.”

The current hospital structure is 86,000 square feet, plans for a new hospital are for a 133,000 square foot facility.

Included in the initial plans are 10 emergency room examination rooms, compared to four in the current hospital. All patient rooms will be private rooms, with private baths. The new structure will have two trauma rooms compared to one currently, and a two-bay ambulance garage so patients can be loaded and unloaded without being exposed to inclement weather. A parking lot that can hold around 400 vehicles is also planned.

Altus Architecture and Design was responsible for designing the new hospital. The firm also designed the Nebraska Orthopedic Hospital in Omaha, the cancer center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and portions of Saint Elizabeth Regional Medical Center campus in Lincoln.

Sommers estimates that the new hospital will be fully constructed by the summer of 2011.

Terri Dageford, director of business and industry for Gage County Economic Development, Inc., said news of the upcoming construction project was the result of many groups working toward a common goal.

“This was not possible without the partnerships, it’s not one entity in this community, it’s everyone working together,” Dageford said. “We have true success when we are working together.”

The new hospital will be located on approximately 40 acres of hospital-owned land near the northern edge of Beatrice west of U.S. Highway 77 near Hickory Road.

General contractors for the project will be Caspers Construction of Beatrice, and Sampson Construction Company of Lincoln.

“We wanted to be able to have someone who has experience,” Sommers said. “And as much as possible, we want to be able to use local people. It just makes sense.”

Sommers is also optimistic that a new hospital may bring new medical professionals to town.

“A newer, more modern facility will help us to continue to recruit,” he said, noting that current hospital employees have been “very involved” in the process of designing a new facility. “It should enable us to feed on our previous successes.”

Dageford hopes that the new hospital will also bring additional development of the city’s north side.

“Beatrice Community Hospital is really going to be our front door on Highway 77,” Dageford said. “It’s about shiny and new, it’s about being progressive. We hope that through this we will attract your business services, health related businesses within our area.”

Though significantly larger in area, the new hospital will continue to serve as a critical access hospital, limited to just 25 patient beds. The critical access designation means that Medicare will reimburse the hospital for 100 percent of the cost for treating patients under its coverage.

“Health care is a very resource-intensive industry and costly,” Sommer said. “For our community to be successful, we need to be as cost efficient as we can.”

Beatrice Community Hospital was originally founded on July 16, 1911, as the Beatrice Menonite Hospital. It became Beatrice Community Hospital in the 1970s and acquired the Beatrice Lutheran Hospital in 1982. The oldest portion of the current hospital structure was built in 1957, though several additions have been added since that time.

Sommers said the hospital remains uncertain what will become of the current building.